Now, I hear a lot of mouth foaming about how the Democrats are all rich too and they bend over backwards (and forwards) for the wealthy just like the GOP does. But I don't really see it here. Why would they make a tax policy that cut into their profits? Why would guys like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and George Soros promote policies that dictate less tax breaks for the wealthy? I guess there's my answer and then there's the unreality of the fact free zone.
Seriously, though, look at the top bracket. How can you not laugh?
41 comments:
What is it with your guys' class warfare?
Yeah, in pure $ terms that's more money than those who pays less.
They pay more money in total dollars, they pay a higher percentage of total income and so an equal cut in percentage is of course going to result in a larger dollar figure in savings.
This whole 'the rich need to pay their fair share' is just a load of baloney. You want to talk about fair you need to talk flat tax. There is nothing 'fair' about a progressive tax.
And before blk shows up talking about capital gains. So what? At least the capital gains tax rate is equal for everyone. Actually, the Bush tax cuts lowered the capital gains tax rate (by a huge rate I might add) for the lowest tax brackets. But regardless, your $10k capital gains tax is the SAME percentage as anothers $100k rate.
Since you like the graphics, try this one on for size.
http://picasaweb.google.com/conservatopia/Tax?authkey=Gv1sRgCOXdj4nRt-ekzgE&feat=directlink
Doesn't even look like one starts paying real money until you hit the $200,000 mark.
Why would they make a tax policy that cut into their profits? Why would guys like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and George Soros promote policies that dictate less tax breaks for the wealthy?
Maybe because tax laws, like any other laws, don't affect you if you don't obey them. When Kerry was running for President in '04, he said he "wanted to pay more taxes"... but that didn't stop him from homeporting his luxury yacht in Rhode Island so he wouldn't have to pay NY's taxes on it, did it? Remember George Soros "having a very good crisis"? Do you really think he'd hesitate to engineer one if he thought he'd make billions from it, the way he did from the last one?
Remember the SEIU promoting ObamaCare? That would have increased their costs too, if they had had to comply with it.
Amazingly, it didn't cost them anything. Go figure.
"So what" about capital gains? Why should it make any difference how I earn my money? Why should people who put in a hard eight hours work every day pay taxes at 35%, and rich people who spend all day at the spa while their brokers manage their stock portfolios pay only 15%?
The theory behind low capital gains taxes is that it helps create new jobs. Buying and selling stock on the market creates no new jobs -- only IPOs (like GM's recent IPO to pay off government loans) and corporate bonds give new money to companies to invest in new projects and hire new workers. If I bought a thousand shares of IBM on the market two years ago and sold it at a tidy profit today, IBM saw not one nickel of that money. My purchase created no new jobs. But I only pay 15% capital gains on that income. How is that fair?
If I invest money by putting it in the bank or by buying CDs the interest I get is taxed at the same rate as income, even though that money is loaned out to small businesses to create new jobs. How is that fair?
One way the rich take advantage of being rich is in IPOs. You have to have an in with a broker to get on the ground floor of an IPO. Most IPOs are eagerly anticipated because everyone who buys the IPO does so with the intent of turning around and selling the stock, because most IPO stock goes up immediately. Only the wealthy can get IPO offerings (some brokers even have policies that deny IPOs to people who could be financially "hurt" by a bad one). So regular people have no access at all to one of the most lucrative ways of making money. How is that fair?
People who inherit big bucks will be able to slide right into the lifestyle of the rich and famous and never have to pay taxes at the 35% rate, while people who start from modest means will have to work for decades before they'll have access to the amount of money you need to pay taxes at the 15% rate. How is that fair?
I'd be fine with capital gains taxes being so low if they actually helped create new jobs. But many things that are taxed at the super low rate do not create jobs or wealth -- they actively destroy jobs. The stock market seriously distorts business by creating perverse short-term incentives to increase the stock price. When a company is having a rough time the answer is often for the CEO to hang tough and fire a lot of employees. Then the market rewards the company by ramping up the stock price: share-holders and execs cash in. Even though, in many cases, the employees that are fired are actually needed to do the work. And firing two or three management hacks, or the CEO taking a 50% pay cut would save more money than the firings because these guys have given themselves such ridiculously high salaries.
The same thing happens over and over with mergers. The market's always eager to see acquisitions happen, and billionaires are made. But 90% of the time the merged company is a mess for years afterwards, many jobs are lost and the public loses out because there's less competition and less choice. The airlines are a prime example.
It's not class warfare to say that every dollar earned should be taxed at the same rate. It's simple fairness.
It's not class warfare to say that every dollar earned should be taxed at the same rate. It's simple fairness.
So you are against raising income taxes on the rich? You are in favor of a flat tax?
Guess who's talking about Social Security as a Ponzi scheme now?
Too fucking funny.
Yes, but NPR is all right wing racist wackos.
Just ask Juan Williams.
Juris, show me the people who have been ripped off from Social Security as Ponzi and Madoff ripped off people and I'll call it a Ponzi scheme. Show me the people who paid in and have now lost all that money...seeing nothing in return. Show me the intent to deceive....to steal....to fraud. It's not there...except in that pathological and highly (emotional) negative view of goverment.
As of today, everyone is getting their checks and I'd place my bets on the US government paying out over any ass hat on Wall Street...every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Go ahead and put your life savings with the folks from "Inside Job." Let me know how it works out for you. Oh, wait, that's right...after the 150th time they fuck you in the ass...you're going to say thank you...again. And then huff and puff to me about personal interests.
And did you check for bias in the source, Brietbart? Nope, didn't think so. You rip me for poisoning minds yet it is those same students who check for bias straight away...as I have taught them.
show me the people who have been ripped off from Social Security as Ponzi and Madoff ripped off people and I'll call it a Ponzi scheme.
Well, considering YOU don't pay into SS, I can't point you to a mirror - but otherwise it would probably be instructive. Every dime I pay in is going to people collecting benefits NOW. When I retire I will be living off of the payments into the system from the young and poor (to upper middle class).
Show me the people who paid in and have now lost all that money
Everyone dummy, every last one. No one gets out what they paid in - they are paid benefits from current 'contributions' (as the SSA so delicately puts it). You really just don't get that, do you? And when current contributions aren't enough (as will soon be the case) - then those IOUs (aka "the Trust Fund") get called in out of the general fund.
Show me the intent to deceive....
Ask your granny - is she collecting from what she put in, or is she collecting from what current workers are putting in? THAT is the deception and you apparently are too blind to see it. She doesn't believe for a minute that she is taking from current workers - but she is. That is why the SSA does talk about the beneficiary to worker ratio, even though they do it in a backhanded way.
Mark, you do realize that at some point Ponzi's operation was paying dividends, and Maddoff's plan was paying out?
By your definition we couldn't call Maddoff's scheme a Ponzi until people stopped getting paid. That is as patently ridiculous as what you are claiming.
And did you check for bias in the source, Brietbart? Nope, didn't think so. You rip me for poisoning minds yet it is those same students who check for bias straight away...as I have taught them.
You, who link to Daily Kos and Huffington Post as "evidence", have the balls to accuse others of failing to check for bias in the source?
Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.
Juris-It's only been the last six years that I have not paid into social security. I've been working since I was 18 years old. I paid in for nearly 20 years. In fact, I worked in marketing/sales for around 5 years and made pretty decent money.
And it's lost ALL their money, juris, not some. Ponzi et al absconded with money. The government has not because THEY SEND CHECKS TO PEOPLE EVERY MONTH. How dense can you be? Has your hatred of government blinded you so much that you can't admit the obvious?
I don't want to hear about the future, either. That's not any sort of factual or logical indicator. Saying "what will happen" is not a measure of anything given the wide variety of variables. Again, your personal bias about the government is being injected into your analysis.
If there is intent to deceive, than why do you know everything there is to know about SS? Do you think Madoff's people or Ponzi's victims knew as much as is known about how SS works? No, the didn't. Again, unfuck yourself from your pathology.
GD-so Madoff's people didn't lose any of their money and they are still getting checks? I've got 75 years of people being paid SS. Do the victims of Madoff and Ponzi? No. But I bet they still get their social security checks, right? If you are making a prediction about the future, that's a guess then and not a fact. You don't know what will actually happen for certain, do you?
DT-They are liberally biased. So what? I think I've linked the Daily Kos once and HuffPo maybe two more times than that. Otherwise, I am very dilligent about the links I put up. But they all have bias. Even Adam Smith who I put up the other day.
Mark,
And it's lost ALL their money, juris, not some. Ponzi et al absconded with money.
No! They did not. Saying so not only shows you still don't understand what a Ponzi is, it shows you have not been listening to what has been said.
Mark, by your use of some kind of circular reasoning Madoff wasn't running a ponzi the day before the funds dried up, but the day the funds ran out it somehow magically became a ponzi scheme.
The ponzi isn't in the outcome, it's in the structure.
And it's lost ALL their money, juris, not some. Ponzi et al absconded with money.
No Ponzi and Madoff both paid off the early investors at high returns because they were doing so out of subsequent 'investment' inputs. Yes, they also skimmed off mightily - but not entirely, else the initial investors wouldn't have been fooled into talking about how great their investments were.
Turn off the tap on new SS 'contributions' and SS cannot pay ALL of its obligations out of the Trust Fund (i.e. cashing in the IOUs and taking money out of the General Fund). It is fundamentally the same thing - just minus the SSA not skimming as much as Ponzi/Madoff. It is unsustainable without new money coming in to pay out to current beneficiaries.
Has your hatred of government blinded you so much that you can't admit the obvious?
Unlike you and your hatred of corporations, I don't hate the govt in general. I have some specific grievances but that hardly makes me an anarchist. I am a Madisonian - govt is necessary. However it is not the role of the govt to satisfy everyone's wants (or even needs).
It is too bad that you continue to put this in such black/white terms. Yet again, you are the intellectual equal of the last President. You would rather cling bitterly to your incoherent worldview (in vain hope of it comforting you) than actually learn something and change your mind. I foolishly think that because you actually learned something about gun rights means that you are somewhat open minded; you take every opportunity to disabuse me of that notion.
Again, your personal bias about the government is being injected into your analysis.
My "personal bias" - as in consulting such things as the SSA actuarial data and analysis, or think-tanks such as Brookings or Cato. And your points of reference guarding against confirmation bias are?
The ponzi isn't in the outcome, it's in the structure.
Excellent catch there GD. Liberal/progressives are always most concerned with outcomes: the ends justify the means.
Oh, and M - the reason you have "75 years of benefits payments" is because that is backed up by the power to tax - to forcibly extract money from people. Bernie Madoff only had the power of persuasion. If he could've collected contributions at gun point, he might still be running his scam.
So if Ponzi had been able to compel participation in his scheme from hundreds of millions of "investors", it wouldn't have been a Ponzi scheme... until it finally collapsed, right?
And of course, it doesn't matter that when SS became law, it promised retirement benefits beginning at age 65... which was 7 years older than the average life expectancy at the time... somehow there is no possibility that there was any intent to deceive. There may not be any actual evidence to suggest that there was no such intent, but who needs evidence, right?
GD-It's actually in both and that's why we are having the disagreement. You won't accept this.
"The important difference and the fundamental difference is that there is no secret to how Social Security is run. No one is being misled; no one is taking the money and running..." ---Mitchell Zukoff, author of Ponzi's Scheme
Juris-Again, dealing with hypotheticals. And you're also bringing in your bias about the US government. The US Treasury Bonds must be bad because....IT'S THE GOVERNMENT!!
Cato? Juris, c'mon...they are a libertarian think tank. Of course, they hate Social Security. Jeez..
"to forcibly extract money from people."
"Every tax, however, is, to the person who pays it, a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is the subject of government;,indeed but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master."---Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776
I think we can clear this entire mess up with two simple questions. Let's see if we can connect to any sort of critical thinking.
1. Many of Madoff's (and other Ponzi type schemes) victims were retired. As you say, they were "forced" to pay into SS. Who is sending the money they need right now to survive?
2. Suppose Bush succeeded in privatizing Social Security. Where would that money be right now?
I've asked question #2 several times and, as of yet, have not gotten a response.
The answers to both of these questions are very clear and demonstrate that your assertions are ridiculous. So answer them honestly and let's dispense with the pathetic attempt to equate thievery to an entitlement program in order to win the argument.
Disappointed in you, Mark. You got sucked in again to a winning the argument, no-point debate. Maybe you will learn your lesson this time.
The important difference and the fundamental difference is that there is no secret to how Social Security is run. No one is being misled...
How easy was it in 1935 to find out what the average American's life expectancy was?
How much or little similarity does SS bear to anything else in human history that has ever been called "a trust fund"?
But no, no one was ever misled...
Mitchell Zukoff, author of Ponzi's Scheme
A JOURNALISM professor cum author. That is your source - and even then you haven't read the book - just the interview on a liberal website.
Juris-Again, dealing with hypotheticals. And you're also bringing in your bias about the US government. The US Treasury Bonds must be bad because....IT'S THE GOVERNMENT!!
What do you think is hypothetical about SSA actuarial data or any of the other analysis of SS? Why does the SSA employ actuaries? Do you DENY that the system is based on current payments funding current expenditures? If you do deny that, on what basis or evidence?
There is nothing bad about Treasury Bonds, but you do understand that they are a loan from the person that buys it today to the U.S. govt to be repaid in the future (plus interest) out of tax receipts? Right? Doesn't matter who holds it, that is how it works. Do you understand that? I'm guessing you do, because you are getting more shrill and ridiculous with your responses.
I mean, don't you think you look foolish, even more than normal, when you keep accusing me of something that isn't true.
Cato? Juris, c'mon...they are a libertarian think tank. Of course, they hate Social Security. Jeez..
I cited three: SSA itself, Brookings and Cato. You of course immediately get a hard-on about the last, which drains the blood away from your brain so that you can't even respond except to drool ideology!!!. Would you like me to also reference the various bi-partisan commissions on SS reform? It won't matter, you refuse to accept facts that don't comport with your beliefs. And your solution to cognitive dissonance is covering your ears and loudly singing "la, la, la, I can't hear you".
2. Suppose Bush succeeded in privatizing Social Security. Where would that money be right now?
Wait, what? I thought you didn't want any "dealing with hypotheticals." Or are you suggesting that absolutely everyone, with no exceptions, lost money during the recent financial fiasco? Since the idea was killed long before it ever came to choosing particular investments, we'll never know "where that money would be right now", will we?
Of course, you know that money would be gone, no evidence needed, because you can read minds, predict the future, divine people's motivations, and other miracles, almost as good as The Lightworker(tm) Himself. That's not a hypothetical.
Sheesh, how do you get your head through doorways?
It looks like a duck. It quacks like a duck. It walks like a duck. It swims like a duck.
But it's really a chicken in a duck costume, to think it's an actual duck is "ridiculous".
Got it. Good thing you cleared that up.
"2. Suppose Bush succeeded in privatizing Social Security. Where would that money be right now? I've asked question #2 several times and, as of yet, have not gotten a response."
I typed what you will read below on this blog under the Aug 31, 2010 entry where there is a video about Detroit. You already got my response to it....you must not be paying attention to what we are saying on here...and you typed that AFTER saying "Saying "what will happen" is not a measure of anything..." and "Again, dealing with hypotheticals"?
-----------------------------------
As to your repeated claim on here that stocks go down and the SS money would have gone with it...
It’s common knowledge that most wealthy people invest their retirement savings in a mix of stocks, bonds, and other investments. The smart ones start off investing aggressively when they are young, getting more conservative and more liquid as they get older. That’s how you retire rich. That is not gambling. That is investing. But then you have folks of modest means in this country who find it difficult to save and invest. One of the reasons they may find it difficult to save and invest is that Uncle Sam skims 15 percent off the top of their paychecks and forces them to "invest" in Social Security — which, for most Americans, is an investment that provides embarrassingly low returns. So yes, there is risk when investing in stocks and bonds. But there is also terrifying risk when "investing" in Social Security. Have you seen what Social Security’s unfunded liabilities are? If it were a bank or an insurance company selling retirement annuities, it would have been shut down long ago, and its executives probably would have been charged with crimes. There is no corporation in the world that I am aware of with a hundred trillion dollars in net liabilities.
Stocks and bonds go bad sometimes; that’s why you don’t put all of your money into one company. But for people of modest means, who will be almost entirely dependent on Social Security, all of their eggs are in a red, white, and blue basket — and they could be scrambled at any time because when the time for choosing comes, and your politicians have to decide whether to pay its bondholders in Beijing or little old blue-haired ladies in Lubbock, Texas, waiting for their Social Security checks, who do you think is going to get shorted? The bond markets have the power to end Congress’s ability to borrow money on amenable terms - and that prospect scares the political class more than anything short of manual labor.
Since you, blk, Brandon, and Obama never talk about what you would do to solve the ss problems we face, maybe I’ll try to bait you here. Up to now, there only seems to be three options for Social Security reform: raise taxes, cut benefits, or switch to personal accounts. While benefit cuts are defensible economically, they are a disaster politically and are not likely to prove any more politically popular than personal accounts were, probably less so. Democrats are already organizing to fight any reductions.
Here’s another way of looking at it. Social Security pays out benefits according to a complicated formula based in part on recipients’ lifetime earnings. I’d be open to adjusting that formula so that the wages you make in the future "earn" you fewer Social Security benefits. Perhaps it could be said that a 65-year-old has a moral right to the payments that have been promised to him but a 21-year-old in his first day at work doesn’t have a moral right to benefits he hasn’t earned yet. Every plan to adjust the benefits formula recognizes this distinction. (That is, it lowers the rate at which benefits are earned going forward). The alternatives to reducing the future benefits of middle-income and high-income workers are 1) to tax them more heavily (which is pretty stupid economically and politically or 2) let the system collapse. And while there are a lot of problems with Social Security, it doesn’t have to keep spiraling toward bankruptcy every election cycle. Cut the growth of future benefits and it has a chance to be sustained for decades to come.
Stocks and bonds go bad sometimes; that’s why you don’t put all of your money into one company. But for people of modest means, who will be almost entirely dependent on Social Security, all of their eggs are in a red, white, and blue basket — and they could be scrambled at any time because when the time for choosing comes, and your politicians have to decide whether to pay its bondholders in Beijing or little old blue-haired ladies in Lubbock, Texas, waiting for their Social Security checks, who do you think is going to get shorted? The bond markets have the power to end Congress’s ability to borrow money on amenable terms - and that prospect scares the political class more than anything short of manual labor.
Since you, blk, Brandon, and Obama never talk about what you would do to solve the ss problems we face, maybe I’ll try to bait you here. Up to now, there only seems to be three options for Social Security reform: raise taxes, cut benefits, or switch to personal accounts. While benefit cuts are defensible economically, they are a disaster politically and are not likely to prove any more politically popular than personal accounts were, probably less so. Democrats are already organizing to fight any reductions.
Here’s another way of looking at it. Social Security pays out benefits according to a complicated formula based in part on recipients’ lifetime earnings. I’d be open to adjusting that formula so that the wages you make in the future "earn" you fewer Social Security benefits. Perhaps it could be said that a 65-year-old has a moral right to the payments that have been promised to him but a 21-year-old in his first day at work doesn’t have a moral right to benefits he hasn’t earned yet. Every plan to adjust the benefits formula recognizes this distinction. (That is, it lowers the rate at which benefits are earned going forward). The alternatives to reducing the future benefits of middle-income and high-income workers are 1) to tax them more heavily (which is pretty stupid economically and politically or 2) let the system collapse. And while there are a lot of problems with Social Security, it doesn’t have to keep spiraling toward bankruptcy every election cycle. Cut the growth of future benefits and it has a chance to be sustained for decades to come.
With the possible exception of last in line, I'm done engaging any of the other conservatives on this blog until you all can demonstrate any sort of critical thinking. You all start from the "government bad-ugh" position and argue from there, tying as many negative things as you possibly can to it. All this while dressing up the turd that is the free market. I say "turd" because there's nothing free about it for the lower 98 percent.
Like Jonah Goldberg's bizarro history in which liberals are fascist, now a successful entitlement program is criminal like Ponzi schemes. The lies are so thick that you people should be fucking ashamed of yourselves.
Still no answer to either question. See how pointless it is, Mark? The correct answers are
1. Social Security
2. Gone
if anyone other than the stonewallers is interested. And number two is not a hypothetical. Money invested in the stock market was lost, correct?
Money invested in the stock market was lost, correct?
So you're claiming that no one made money off the stock market during the crisis? Whether or not the money would be "gone" has no relationship to what investments you made?
My my, how reality based of you.
I'm done engaging any of the other conservatives on this blog until you all can demonstrate any sort of critical thinking.
Thank you very much.
Promise?
>I'm done engaging any of the other conservatives on this blog until you all can demonstrate any sort of critical thinking.
Heh. Jeff, having given no indication that he is capable of anything resembling critical thought, is taking his ball and going home. Aww.
>You all start from the "government bad-ugh" position and argue from there, tying as many negative things as you possibly can to it.
Tell me Jeff - throughout history, what do you think has caused more human misery - governments, or free markets? Which one is deserving of more skepticism and oversight?
>All this while dressing up the turd that is the free market. I say "turd" because there's nothing free about it for the lower 98 percent.
I dunno Jeff, it really sounds like you're starting from the "free market-ugh" position and arguing from there. You don't want to show any biases, do you?
>criminal like Ponzi schemes.
Where did any of us say criminal with respect to Soc Sec? Similarities with Ponzi scheme, yes. Criminal? No. You need to work on your reading comprehension son.
Last, that's not really an answer. It wasn't then and it's not now. You know very well that the SS money, had it been invested in various private concerns, would largely be gone. How much money did you lose in 2008? We lost around 40 thousand dollars. For the life of me, I will never understand why you keep going back to these people and trusting them with your money. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Worse, many of you shit all over the government who has actually done a better job handling money than Goldman Sachs, AIG, or any other criminal in the financial sector.
Tess, I get where you are coming from regarding futility and I appreciate your honest and correct answers. This one really gets to me, I guess, because the facts are so clearly obvious I just can't see how someone can be so ass hatted! I guess it's just their pathology.
All this while dressing up the turd that is the free market. I say "turd" because there's nothing free about it for the lower 98 percent.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhahahahahaha
That is what passes for critical thinking in your mind?
Thanks, please don't engage with me ever again. I don't need to attempt to teach those who are willfully and purposely retarded. You really are the progressive equivalent of Westboro Baptist.
I love how everyone here can tell me what my basic position is, and refuse to listen to me when I actually tell them. No, I'm just an "ugh govt bad" type - and I am told this by people who expressly say themselves "corporations/markets bad"!
There is a lot of shit around here, and the amazing thing is how many people insist it smells of roses.
At least I can laugh at the irony of how many 'turkeys' will be enjoying this Thanksgiving Day.
Worse, many of you shit all over the government who has actually done a better job handling money than Goldman Sachs, AIG, or any other criminal in the financial sector.
Don't you see the irony in defending govt spending as so good - when it was bailing out the very "criminals" you mention?
Anyway, I'm pretty sure you have lied about your granny investing in CDSs - so I don't know why I should bother any further in this discussion. You ignore what I actually say and instead argue with the voices in your head.
Oh, and my 401K 'lost' a lot of money a couple of years back. I'm pretty sure I've recouped all those losses since and am back on track. Now if my house value would just go back to climbing 20% per year (and given what the govt is doing right now, it probably will).
Ah, the core of your argument shows through.
You all start from the "government bad-ugh" position and argue from there...
Apparently you are either unwilling or unable to comprehend how even those who founded this country, faced with the unavoidable necessity of creating a government, still regarded it as a necessary evil.
And as well...
All this while dressing up the turd that is the free market. I say "turd" because there's nothing free about it for the lower 98 percent.
You have shown yourself incapable of grasping the idea that the only path to large scale freedom ever yet discovered absolutely requires property rights and the rule of law at its foundation in order to survive. The above statement shows that the only freedom you're interested in is freedom from the consequences of your own actions and choices, as that is the only freedom that (to a great degree) the upper 2% have and the other 98% do not.
I am left with only two possible conclusions:
1. Either you are too stupid to realize that freedom from consequences is flatly impossible on a large scale, and you wanting your freedom from them marks you as foursquare against equality under the law, or
2. you are entirely aware that you are arguing in support of despotism, don't give a damn as long as you get to believe you have some say in who your despot is and how he rules, but are too much of a moral coward to argue for it openly.
I try hard to be a nice person, but I can't say either of those choices looks very flattering for you.
The Dow Jones is at 80% of what it was at it's highest point ever in 2008.
But, saying that one has lost 20% of their savings would not be correct unless one invested 100% of their savings in 2008. That isn't how people generally invest. Most people put money in say a 401k at a regular rate over time.
As a hypothetical let's say I put a regular investment into a 401k for the last twenty years only investing in the Dow Jones.
Every penny invested from 1990 to 1999 would still be worth more than I put in. Every penny invested from 2000-2001 would be the same. Every penny put in from 2001 to 2005 would be worth more. It's only till we look at money invested from 2005 until 2008 that we have an actual loss on investment.
You got that? A 20% loss only on 20% of the investment. That is more than made up for by the 400% increase of the funds invested in 1990, the 370% increase of the 1992 money, the 317% increase on the 1994 money, the 200% increase on the 1996 money. Etc, Etc.
These numbers don't take into account dividend reinvestment which can dramatically increase the value of your investment.
To be fair, I'll grant you that to assume the money would be gone is the way to bet. Sure, I'll accept that one.
What I won't accept is that "it's the way to bet" makes this assertion any less hypothetical than the SSA's own actuaries' figures that say the SS money is going away anyway and we're not stopping it. Neither one is 100% certain, both are "the way to bet".
So your argument about "hypotheticals" is pure hypocrisy.
That's not true. If you take the time to read your social security statement, it says that unless changes are made to the system, there are going to be problems in about 25 years. Neither party wants to tackle this issue now (third rail and all) but there are a few simple solutions that could be taken to make certain that the fund won't become insolvent. There were a couple listed in that Times puzzle that Mark put up recently (raising retirement age, using a new method to calculate inflation, higher incomes to opt out) that would work.
I "know very well" it would "largely" be gone? Wow, and you said you don't like hypotheticals? Christ, it was only a portion of the money that could be invested, not the persons whole pot. Are you forgetting the supreme court case I jotted on here that said us folks have no contractual right to the $ we have contributed to SS? My 401K went down around $20k but through that whole thing, I didn't change a thing...not in my investment diversification and not in my contribution rate and my balance is higher than it ever has been right now (insane enough for you?). My 401K is the only money I invest in the stock market...I have put extra money on my mortgage as well as my money market account (you know - those people - those people who run my money market account that gets me 2%....wow).
Pay attention you morons - the free market is more than wall street, insurance companies and big banks.
Not one of you disputed anything I just typed. All I got was "that's not an answer". Golly, thanks for clearing that up for me.
"With the possible exception of last in line"? Juris, FW, GD, DT, Haplo, don't you guys get too jealous now k...
Oh last, I don't think I'll ever get over being so crushed. jeff thinks you're sorta okay and I'm just an "ugh". The brute.
Oh don't go getting all high and mighty Last, he only gave you a possible exception.
Don't worry last, I think they have therapy for the 'critical thinking' affliction now.
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