The vouchers would be good only for health care (so irresponsible people can't go gamble them away, etc) and the difference is simply that I get to pick my own, which fosters competition among health care providers.

DF: For the question about insurance pools, that methodology is no longer being followed for the major health insurers in Michigan as they are going by personal health risks to determine current levels of coverage instead of "everybody who works for ABC gets their insurance for X$". I laid that all out in another thread here recently. It is now risk based, not pool based so the pool concept becomes a moot point. Pools can be communities, age groups, etc.. just like they are for every other type of insurance. If the "pool" is everybody in the county, for example, then, per the "risk pool" concept, it should be even cheaper because there are more people in the county than there are employees in your company.

1. If more people move into the market the price per share will increase. As long as a bubble is adverted there will not be a problem. Bubbles usually occur when the risk is concentrated. Remember that the shares of mutual funds have %'s (usually small) of varying companies and types of businesses/companies/industries. The risk is spread out.

2. Tough stuff if most people suck at money management. Put the money in the least aggressive fund and go from there. There is such a thing as risk versus reward and if someone does not know how to invest they can put it into MM funds or even CD's backed by the government (similar to FDIC). I really don't care. People must learn to take care of themselves.

3. No if there is no money it is time to chuck it and start all over again. Those who don't want to invest their own funds can invest through a government guaranteed program at a minimal % return. But my suspicion is that most persons under 50 will chose to invest their own funds as they see fit. It is time for all of us to grow up and take responsibility for our own care and retirement. SS has never been designed as a retirement plan but only a safety net. Over time it has ballooned into the monstrosity it is today.

I think this is where we're having the disconnect - I agree with this from a conceptual basis, and personal responsibility should really be emphasized as often as possible in government/citizen interactions.

However, the reality is that allowing dumb people to do dumb things with dumb money they've poured into a dumb system will likely cause a massive increase in the need for social services, welfare, government-sponsored senior housing, etc.

There's the distinct possibility that privatization creates more new expenses for the average taxpayer than they would gain through average investment. What do you do with those who lose their nut? What do you do in crappy markets?

The goal of any government interaction with the market should be to ebb swings, right? Doesn't privatization distinctly and strongly emphasize market swings by making the highs higher and the lows even lower (more money into social programs etc.)?

I don't want to make $40,000 in the market, but lose $1,200 in taxes every year for 50 years. This could well be a hidden net negative.

The seating chart was no more than a Sadie Hawkins style political brownie point Kumbya showfest. It means nothing until it actually means something....and I'll believe that when I see it.

Don't we allow people to gamble their hard owned $$$ away? Doesn't our various governments sanction this possible loss of income? I see no guarantees that gambling will result in a reward of more $$$. The lottery also is a sinkhole where many dumb people sink their hard earned earnings. At least with the mutual fund market you will not lose all your principal as what you are, in fact, buying are shares of a fund at a price certain. One will still own the shares and as the market rebounds the shares regain their value. It may not be as quickly as one would like but it has always happened. I don't see the libs out there bitching about gambling and the lottery. Maybe that is because it is the governments that are taking peoples $$$ and not private entities. There is a little bit of hypocrisy there.

We do, and the reason why we heavily tax casinos is to help offset the social cost of the catastrophic losses suffered by morons, addicts and others.

Past that, I don't get why this is a "Libs" thing - I'm not a liberal under any definition, I want to keep as much of my money as possible. Other people going broke forces me to spend my money on them, too - like it or not, that's the way it is. So let's not change a bad system for a worse one that allows them to go broke faster and in more ways.

I'm not sure what it's like in your part of the country, but honestly quite a few "libs" I know hate the lottery system for being about the most regressive 'tax' in the world - and I've never met a "Repub" who got all up in arms because dumb poor folk were getting charged a 49% tax on their lottery EV without being told about it or where it was going. So like ...

So if one was to opt out of SS what would happen to the money they already "invested" into it? I'm not a fan of it myself, but I don't see it going away... Ever.

I wasn't opposed to SS being privatized initially, til I lost more than half of my retirement fund when the market crashed in 2008. I'm too old to be starting over from scratch, and I moved my money to a bond fund the day that Lehman went under so I didn't lose as much as most of my co-workers who don't pay attention.

In that same realm, my employer recently announced that they are ending our pension plan (what we have in there is staying and will earn interest) and instead putting the money they typically give us annually into our retirement savings plan. My initial thought was "Ok, I'll just make sure that money goes into one of the safer funds" and then found out it will be distributed among funds in the same percentages as regular retirement savings plan funds. I considered the pension plan the "safe" money and the retirement savings plan as the "risk" money. Now I have to figure out how to keep the right mix so I don't have all my eggs in one basket. It's giving me a headache.

^^ See that's my thing. I support SS being a safety net, and frankly I'd support people with a certain level of income to have some sort of opt-out thing, though I admit I don't know the details of how it works currently as I'm more familiar with SSI and SSDI than retirees.

However, that said, if you remove that safety net in favor of privitization you now have people with NO safety net. I find it interesting that Ghostwriter didn't have an answer to what you do when people DO end up without money - whether due to a market crash or being utterly irresponsible, it happens. So then what? We let people starve? We pay more in food stamps, TANF, Section 8, Medicare, Medicaid, nursing homes, and so on? We create a new safety net and then have the saem problems all over again?

Um, so why have casinos if you have so many problems with addicts, morons, etc. (your words)? This is, of course, a redundant question. The answer is because we as a people have freewill to do dumb stuff. As such, I do not believe it is my responsibility to rescue people who do dumb stuff with their money. I do believe it is our responsibility as a society to help the truly helpless and indigent. But not the morons and addicts.

How do you know that changing the SS system by privatizing a portion of it would necessarily be bad? Is this what the talking heads have told you? If we haven't tried it how do we know it won't work? Instead you would have us we keep bailing it out and throwing good money after bad. If we do the same thing over and over again why should we expect a different outcome? That is just crazy.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...security-fund/#

I put my money into mutuals over the last 20 years and while the funds have gone up and down over this time frame I am well into the plus side. I am not a genius when it comes to investments but a (very) little common sense and one can build equity. One has to look at the long term results not the short term fluctuations.

What would one call someone who supports gambling or the lottery and then bemoans the fact that some people become addicted and lose all their money? Maybe I have misrepresented the "liberal" viewpoint but it is certainly not a conservative one. Perhaps it is just an insane viewpoint, instead. I am truly baffled.

I am in NC and can assure you that our state, which until this year has been run by "libs", in both chambers for the last 60 years , installed a lottery for "education" over the objections of those more conservative in beliefs. This lottery is a joke as the funds do not go directly to education and instead go into the general fund just like SS funds do at a national level. Education has not received extra due to lottery receipts and now we are laying off teachers. I am sick and tired of our "leaders" wasting our money and lying to us about their intentions.

SS is a sham and never was intended to be a retirement fund. It is a safety net and even at that a poor one. 15% of our money goes to prop this joke up and we are in the red this year.

[QUOTE=Drolefille;2024237Ghostwriter didn't have an answer to what you do when people DO end up without money - whether due to a market crash or being utterly irresponsible, it happens. [/QUOTE]

I don't care. The market will rebound it always does. One never loses everything unless you take all your money out.

Being irresponsible...I couldn't care less. They can figure it out themselves.

From the Social Security Administration page itself:
http://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html


Q4: Is it true that Social Security was originally just a retirement program?

A: Yes. Under the 1935 law, what we now think of as Social Security only paid retirement benefits to the primary worker. A 1939 change in the law added survivors benefits and benefits for the retiree's spouse and children. In 1956 disability benefits were added.

Keep in mind, however, that the Social Security Act itself was much broader than just the program which today we commonly describe as "Social Security." The original 1935 law contained the first national unemployment compensation program, aid to the states for various health and welfare programs, and the Aid to Dependent Children program. (Full text of the 1935 law.)

Point taken. However this also indicates that it was never meant to be to sole or primary source of retirement funds.

"It is impossible under any social insurance system to provide ideal security for every individual. The practical objective is to pay benefits that provide a minimum degree of social security—as a basis upon which the worker, through his own efforts, will have a better chance to provide adequately for his individual security." -- From the Report of the Social Security Board recommending the changes which were embodied in the 1939 Amendments.

I should have parsed my words better and stated that it was not originally envisioned as the sole or primary source of retirement income. I still call it a sham as the return on investment is poor and the Trust Fund is not there. There is no money set aside by our Federal government.

So, if they can't afford to eat, it's cool to let them die. If they can't afford rent or their mortgage, they should be evicted.

Troll more. :rolleyes:

I have already opted out of SS once. I still had money invested in it, but for the years that I was opted out, I did not pay into the system. This was a part of Louisiana employees' retirement options. I only participated for part of my residency, but I was able to take $14,000 out of the system and rollover into a 401K. My husband took his out and paid a penalty to just keep the money. My 401K lost 45% of it's value the next year when the stock market tanked.:rolleyes:

And if abortion is not allowed and they are made to have children to hell with the kids-let them live on the streets as well.

If only they were responsible. Responsible people never need help! They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps!

BOOTSTRAPS!

That must be it! No one issued them their bootstraps! Quick...get everyone some bootstraps, and all are problems are solved.

Risk or not I would love to be able to do that. The way it looks now, I'll never see the SS benefits anyway ( unless I get maimed or actually live past 80) so even if I lost 60% of my money it'd still be better than not getting anything. I'm still in my 20s and I've already paid about 34k in SS taxes; I'd probably be a millionaire by 50 if I was able to invest that money into 401k, Roth, or mutual funds ( in addition to my other investments).

THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOCIALISM!

I'm a fan of tongue in cheek commentary. I'm apt to use that approach myself.

Boomers cannot afford to drop dead at this point. Many of us are busy taking care of our aged parents who, due to the advent of so many wonder drugs, are staying alive, independent, grumpy, and uncooperative in unprecedented numbers. After we finish taking care of Mom and Dad at their fully paid for house, parking their fully paid for car in the garage and making sure all is well, we head home to find our 25 year old slob of a kid lying on the sofa texting their friends. It's okay, though. They can still be included on our health insurance at no small cost to us. So in case they should get stressed out about not being able to find a job paying them what they have been led to believe they're worth, they can go see a Doc about how stressed out they are.
FTR, my kids aren't like that. They're grown, married, and making a good deal of money. Of course, as the offspring of Boomers, they've been brought up in a semi-privileged world and understand the NEED to make money. LOL.

Just kidding. Well, sort of. I am a Boomer and I can only dream about retiring. Maybe I will just drop dead so that someone else can do what I'm doing. Hanging on to my job, paying my bills, desperately trying to save more money since my 401K got KILLED in '08, and staring down the 30 somethings who think they deserve my job.

Hell, from where I'm sitting, Bob Dylan really didn't matter. Ever. :(

Because having been once burned, they're too unintelligent to learn from their mistakes?

There are all sorts of the old fashioned sayings about this; things your grandmother said but went in one ear and out the other:

1. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
2. Once bitten, twice shy.
3. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him how to fish and he can feed himself forever.

And on and on.

Safety nets do wear out over time. Especially if they're over used.

Indeed, but advocating the removal of the safety net means that people fall to the ground. Then what? As others have said, you then need more social services to provide for those who 'fall' if they're to get back up on their feet again. GW's just trolling.

Also, my grandmother never said those things, FWIW.

I am already dealing with this at age 38 (except the 25 year old part-no kids of my own). My parents were older when I was born (I was the oops). Dad just passed away last year at 85, now mom is losing her mind:(

OK, SOME Grandmas said those things. :)

I agree that we should help those who are truly down on their luck in the event of a disaster or unforeseen circumstances, etc.

How many times do we help someone who refuses to take necessary steps to help themselves? At what point is it okay to expect that if able, they re-enter mainstream society and begin to contribute again so that others who come behind them and also undergo the the same sort of misfortune are able to have the same level of assistance?

Is it unreasonable to have an expectation of such? The bedrock core of those who are always the "contributors" or the "producers" is shrinking. It's not outside of the realm of possibility that at some point they can be expected to say enough?

I am a big softie, but dang, I'm just about out of being able to keep on keeping on.

I think it's pretty telling that GW Bush talked about privatizing Social Security repeatedly while campaigning yet, once elected, even when he had a Republican Congress and Senate, it didn't happen. That makes me think they decided maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

In this case we're discussing Social Security, which short of being disabled you receive after retirement and you receive based on what you pay into the system. So, we're talking about people who HAVE produced, have helped themselves all their lives. If you remove SS (or privitize it or whatever) most people will probably do ok, although they'll probably work longer. As much as we all work paycheck to paycheck these days I don't doubt that the cost of living would increase faster if we all had our SS money available to us rather than making it easier to save. But that's an aside. So most people do OK, but some people, whether because they've invested poorly, or just had bad luck, will end up needing some sort of safety net anyway. Perhaps they invest in a house and it is destroyed by flooding which wasn't covered by their insurance. Or they were invested in very reasonable mutual funds and following a market 'correction' they end up with very little in the way of principal left. So they have to withdraw to live and that just spirals downwards. But perhaps these are people who were never good at managing their money in the first place, they're irresponsible and had the SS never been taken out of their paychecks they would have spent every last dime. And now they can't work anymore, and no one will hire them to be anything more than a Walmart greeter which pays minimum plus a bit for 25 hours a week. So they need EBT/LINK or they need Section 8 because they can't afford to eat or live. But generally people who are pro-SSprivitisation are against those benefits as well.

I think it is society's job to provide the very basic needs, a place to sleep and something to eat for those who cannot do it for themselves. I don't really believe that there are more than a few outliers who simply choose not to take care of themselves, but that far more are a function of poor health and mental health care, and institutionalized poverty. As much as I mock the "bootstraps" type comment, the biggest problem with it is that it presumes that everyone was born with boots.