Fixing social security

What is your most preferred method of changing the social security system?

  • Remove the upper pay-in limit

    Votes: 64 47.8%
  • Continue to push back the age of first withdrawal as needed

    Votes: 9 6.7%
  • Reduce benefits to maintain system solvency

    Votes: 4 3.0%
  • Abandon it all together over time and let everyone fund their own retirement

    Votes: 45 33.6%
  • Don’t know

    Votes: 12 9.0%

  • Total voters
    134
I just used 100k as an average so that it could plug into a simple compounding interest calculator. You’ll see that my SS calculator a few posts later was also based on a high income, greater than the contribution ceiling, to make it an apples-apples comparison
im pointing out that income 40 years ago would be dramatically less than income today. You cannot use a flat income for all forty years. You need to depreciate past year’s income for both inflation and the fact that the employee likely started at something resembling an entry level for their chosen career, be it lawyer, or garbage man. Picking the same starting and finishing salary, with the finishing salary being something sane today, results in a drastically inflated contribution over the 40year period.
 
We are just going to have to disagree.

That’s just not how capitalism works, and that mentality is what has lead to the ballooning US gini index.

Fundamentally I believe in the American middleclass and for it to survive capitalism needs guardrails.
Communism really is the best way. Take from the haves, give token amount to the have nots. If anyone complains, blame the bourgeoisie. If they keep complaining, well……….
 
Communism really is the best way. Take from the haves, give token amount to the have nots. If anyone complains, blame the bourgeoisie. If they keep complaining, well……….
How does that differ from taxing capital gains and corporate income at a discount to working income? We have seen the results of capitalism and communism and know which direction is best. But democracy has to provide some guide rails. Otherwise we end up at the same place.
 
I just used 100k as an average so that it could plug into a simple compounding interest calculator. You’ll see that my SS calculator a few posts later was also based on a high income, greater than the contribution ceiling, to make it an apples-apples comparison.

Most people my age with real jobs will average that. 33 years from now when I’m retirement age, $100k won’t mean much ( not that it does now)
Yeah SS was never intended as global retirement, it’s just morphed into that.

What’s kinda interesting is that a large part of the national debt is essentially SS buying “stock” in the US government in order to get some sort of return. Every month millions of Americans contribute to SS so we have to issue more “debt”.

Using quotes because this is overly simplistic. State pension have normal portfolios, I think MI actually is heavily invested in my company… not sure what the effect would be if SS could buy VTI.

Also interesting as much as Fox and Friends like to scream about China buying our debt, the biggest foreign debt holder is Japan. Japan has an incredibly old population, comparatively, and they buy treasuries for their national pension plan. China has actually decreased their holdings.

I think if you look at US debt by sector, all retirement esk holders so mutual fund, pensions, SS, life insurance, etc both foreign and domestic make up the vast majority of debt holders.

Anyway the whole system is supposed to be a backstop, therefore no risk tolerance.
 
im pointing out that income 40 years ago would be dramatically less than income today. You cannot use a flat income for all forty years. You need to depreciate past year’s income for both inflation and the fact that the employee likely started at something resembling an entry level for their chosen career, be it lawyer, or garbage man. Picking the same starting and finishing salary, with the finishing salary being something sane today, results in a drastically inflated contribution over the 40year period.
I get that it’s an unrealistically high number.
But it was being compared to a SS payout based on a high income.

To compare it to, Here’s SS for someone that never made a penny under $100k their entire career.


IMG_1760.png
IMG_1759.jpeg
 
I get that it’s an unrealistically high number.
But it was being compared to a SS payout based on a high income.

To compare it to, Here’s SS for someone that never made a penny under $100k their entire career.


View attachment 320377
View attachment 320378
I’m just saying that you should start lower and go up. I guess it might not matter if they were always over the cutoff, and you compare that to a personal investment that is the same amount as whatever the cutoff was for all of the prior years.
 
Solving the world’s problems. You’re welcome. If you woulda read, you’d know the solutions. To bad for TLDR. Haha. Oh and so ya know I earned some for yours today too.
The charts say I didn’t
 
Anybody apply for anything today im not reading thru this.
just waiting now. Waiting for WY to determine how many tags they will issue for their ginormous herd. My past time is arguing about the SS program with people who clearly don’t understand it and have no interest in doing so because it requires them to make hard choices.

 
I have retired, pretty early, with what I hope are pretty comfortable assets. Having said that, luck plays a role. Folks who work manual and get hurt are messed up without SS. And trust me, anyone can get a neurological disease which has no respecter of how hard you hammered. Or cardiovascular. Or cancer. Or immunological. Or rheumatological.

So maybe, lets be a little gentle.

"God forgive me, for I am an old person without money,".
Voices of Old Friends, Simon and Garfunkel, Bookends
 
just waiting now. Waiting for WY to determine how many tags they will issue for their ginormous herd. My past time is arguing about the SS program with people who clearly don’t understand it and have no interest in doing so because it requires them to make hard choices.

AYCE. Did ya miss that thread. Hahaha.
 
Yeah SS was never intended as global retirement, it’s just morphed into that.

What’s kinda interesting is that a large part of the national debt is essentially SS buying “stock” in the US government in order to get some sort of return. Every month millions of Americans contribute to SS so we have to issue more “debt”.

Using quotes because this is overly simplistic. State pension have normal portfolios, I think MI actually is heavily invested in my company… not sure what the effect would be if SS could buy VTI.

Also interesting as much as Fox and Friends like to scream about China buying our debt, the biggest foreign debt holder is Japan. Japan has an incredibly old population, comparatively, and they buy treasuries for their national pension plan. China has actually decreased their holdings.

I think if you look at US debt by sector, all retirement esk holders so mutual fund, pensions, SS, life insurance, etc both foreign and domestic make up the vast majority of debt holders.

Anyway the whole system is supposed to be a backstop, therefore no risk tolerance.
Speaking of Japan - would everyone still agree that they’d be better positioned to invest SS monies in the market as they see fit if the US economy took a turn and VTI looked like the Nikkei for 30 years?

1711413387232.png
Not one to bet against the US economy, but having a low/no risk backstop such as SS is always prudent.
 

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