"Social Security is Welfare"--- My response.

I'm fortunate in that I don't normally spend time in places and ways that will bring me into contact with Baggers and the like. But yesterday I ran into an old acquaintance and during the course of the conversation she trotted out the talking point:

"Well, social security is just another way of saying welfare, really. It's an entitlement, like welfare. And welfare shouldn't be the basis for our society, the Founders believed in independence, not depending on the government."

Holy moley rocky... where do you start with that kind of folly?... Deep breath. Let pleasant expression morph slowly into wary pity.

"Yeah. That's what they want you to think."

"Well it's true. Any intelligent person can see it, if they're not blinded by thinking the government owes them a living."

"Uh-huh. That's what they want you to see."

Exasperatedly "Who? Who 'wants me to think' that?"

"Well, the big bankers. The Wall Streeters. The guys who got all that bailout money. And the people who want to move jobs out of America so they can make bigger profits. And the people who want us to be scared and mean to each other because it means they can make more money from us. The fat cats, in other words. As long as they can keep everyone else believing that poor people and old people and people who are different from us are the enemy, we won't pay attention to them stealing us blind, buying our government out from under us, and laughing all the way to their offshore banks."

"So are you saying I'm stupid?"

headshake, serious look -- gawd fergive me, I'm about to lie--- "Not at all. If they only deceived stupid people, they wouldn't get very far. They have been working for years to buy the media, frame the debate, spread disinformation, and make sure that only stuff that makes people feel victimized and unfairly disadvantaged by other people gets any attention at all. It's taken decades of work to get smart people to believe stuff that will make them vote against their own interest and blame each other for their problems, rather than looking at where the money actually goes."

"What do you mean, 'where the money actually goes'? It goes to welfare queens and the national debt, is where it goes."

"Let me ask you something. Do you think that an economy that results in ten percent of the people owning eighty-seven percent of all financial wealth is going to produce 'independence' for the other ninety percent of the people?"

"Those are bullshit numbers."

"They are not. They are actual facts. Various authorities may quibble about a percentage or two here or there, but the essential fact is that financial wealth has been pooling into a smaller and smaller group of people ever since the end of the 1970s. Programs like Social Security-- which is an insurance program, by the way, not a 'welfare' program, or an 'entitlement'--are in fact the only hope that many of us in the bottom ninety percent have of achieving any kind of 'independence' or 'freedom' or whatever you're concerned about. We in the bottom ninety percent aren't stealing from each other. We're all BEING stolen from, by an economic and political structure that have been slowly subverted to serve Wall Street and the banksters at our expense."

"It's still welfare."

"Whatever."

She does look a little thoughtful, though. Probably a waste of breath anyway, but... you never know.

persistently,
Bright

retirement age?

If the illegals weren't on the dole, she would, though.

to collect it, then THEY are "entitled" because they paid into it all those years. Wonder who paid for it when other people collect Social Security.

When it's time for her and/or spouse to collect Soc. Sec.,
it will be 'retirement income', not welfare.

They are the ultimate spin machines.

:crazy:

so they can legitimately call it a welfare program.

by arguing, "Why should I pay into it if I won't get anything?" — And so it begins.

Because it's a retirement account. People pay in, then they get paid once they retire. We have a big surplus from the baby boomers paying in. In a decade or so, as more boomers retire, the savings will decrease but are not likely to ever go to zero (see the link in my sig for more info).

Calling it welfare is like calling your own bank account welfare: it's ludicrous.

"Calling Social Security welfare is like calling your own bank account welfare"
-MannyGoldstein -DU -2011-09-29

stolen for my quotes file
thanks

from workers to the retired. How do you think the first generation of recipients got social security, when they had not paid into it?

People only got small lump-sum payments for the first few years, only later (aafter they paid in for a few years) did people receive regular distributions for life. It's really more of a self-funded insurance program then a retirement account.

Do you think your insurance company sets aside the premiums you pay it so that it can cover your losses? Of course not. The insurance company invests the premiums it receives and pays out from its incoming revenue as it goes along. A good insurance company keeps money in reserve, but so does Social Security. It is exactly the same system.

The money was invested in government bonds which paid 2% but allowed the government to use the money.

After they used a buch they decided it was so much so they couldn't afford to pay it back.

That's why it looks like workers pay into it to give to the retirees.

If it weren't for the dichotomous thinkers (all or nothing), the government could have paid back sums
over the past 30 years that we've been moaning about social security going broke and brought the levels up.

I imagine that after the boomers start to die off there will be money to keep the program going...

current form and valuation. There is no way that you can spend your way out of debt, given the size and systematic scope of the the US debt and the political entrenchment and control of the levers of power by the corporatist overlords. A further death-blow is the outcome of the complete and utter financialisation of most or all aspects of the US way of life and labour.

The final coffin nails are the underlying ratios of production, infrastructure, and resources vis-a-vis the globalized lowest-common denominator macro-economic schema willingly entered into by the US elites (of BOTH parties) through the practice of 'absolute advantage' (instead of the robust agenda of comparative advantage) in free-market exchange vectors.

It depends on what you spend the money on. If you spend it cleverly, you very definitely can spend your way out of debt.

If you borrow money, buy something with it and then resell what you bought at a profit, you can spend your way out of debt. That is one way.

Another way is tariffs. If we put some tariffs on imports, collected taxes in that way, invested that money in infrastructure that would make what industry we have left more efficient, we could spend our way out of debt.

Some European countries have high VAT taxes. Those taxes even the playing field for domestic manufacturing and services because domestic- and foreign-made products are all taxed, and therefore, imports are not taxed at a lower rate than foreign-made products. That is what we need to do.

In addition to our careless trade policies, we do not tax wealthy people at anywhere near a high enough rate.

It is utterly essential for many reasons that we reimpose estate taxes on the super-rich.

Our nation was founded on the principle that we would not have an aristocracy. Early on, the right of primogeniture was made done away with.

So, yes, if you do it correctly, you can spend your way out of debt. You have to be intelligent about it -- like impose the same taxes on every purchase of products made overseas as you impose on products made in the US. Every time someone spends money, some of it goes to taxes and helps pay off the debt.

I agree but the GOP is creating a major problem here by resisting closing the tax looopholes and raising taxes on the wealthy.

The wealthy know they have been getting a deal with the rates they have.

Why don't they accept that they are ahead of the game and allow their rates to go up (even for a period of time or to get them back in line with the commoners.)

The GOP is pissing evryone off and they are going to get a big surprise in the next election.

As you correctly stared, a good insurance company keeps money in reserve, but just look at firms like AIG. They took the money and lost HUNDREDS of BILLIONS, thus needing a massive, massive bailout.

The same thing has happened with Social Security. The so-called trust fund is composed of IOU's in the form of long term treasuries and notes, that (just like AIG) have had the underpinning company (in this case the US government) turn around and spend its way into trillions upon trillions of debt. Not only that, but the rate paid via interest into the so-called trust fund is a drop in the bucket compared to the true rate of inflation (expansion of the total money supply in ALL its forms).

When the US debt reaches a critical mass, and the system collapses, there is NO WAY that the creditors will exempt the trillions owed to Social Security from the liquidation process.

You are lucky if you get over 1.5%.

Even retirees who saved their money cannot live off of that kind of interest which means that without Social Security at this time, retirees would have to start living off their capital.

And gold and silver will be useless to ordinary citizens if there is a huge currency devaluation.

Where in the world would the ordinary retiree exchange gold and silver or the ETF shares they bought thinking it was gold/silver?

Most 94-year-olds living in a nursing home is just not up to any kind of complex financial transaction, and Social Security is very much about people who are not able to handle a lot of complex decisions. I know a 94-year-old who is still quite independent and of very sound mind, and she finds handling her financial affairs to be overwhelming.

Social Security would have to be invented if it did not exist.

Social Security is not our problem in the US.

Our excessive spending on wars, our failure to tax the rich, in particular the Wall Street thieves and our extreme-right political factions are our problems.

Already met our demise. And that Social Security money sits in the system as well.

Which is how someone who live to be 99 can still get their benefits each month - because others have died before cashing in on it.

The Republicans always make it sound like it is not an affordable system.

could collect on SS. And two died without wives or children.

http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/?p=1957

Fair in every sense that one pays in all their working life on a gamble that they may live long enough to see some benefits. I don't see anything there that says entitlement. Just give us back our money a little at a time and quit using it for something else.

:thumbsup:

Great to See/Read you TygrBright! :hi:

what an ass.

and contributed to social security. I am now collecting back when is owed to me. Welfare -- bull shit.

The folks who believe that some right wing bs line is true, because it sounds true, do not respond to logic. They are the typical American who thinks with his heart and not his reason. The way to appeal to that person is to tell a story that he can feel. One that makes him think "Damn! I'm glad Medicare will be there for me in my old age."

A Depression era story about someone who earned and saved and did everything possible to plan for the future---and then saw it all lost---is ideal, because people who believe in Welfare Queens also believe in the Depression. We all know, viscerally, that our parents and grandparents suffered through no fault of their own.

I ask how their own mother/father or grandmother/grandfather would get by without SS. Would they be able to take care of them?

I know as a youth SS didn't mean much to me. I was immortal, after all. ;) But I knew my grandparents had SS & I knew what a difference it made to them. It never occurred to me that someday TPTB would try to dismantle this valuable program. And the leader of our own party, too. Unfuckingbelievable.

ignorant Yahoos like your acquaintance. (Nice move, btw, letting her think she's part of the 'smart crowd' getting bamboozled :)

And that's assuming Medicare is still around. If it isn't, better add another million or two for contingencies.

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/109077/1-million-doesnt-cut-it-for-retirement?mod=fidelity-buildingwealth

Scottrade recently polled 226 registered investment advisers on the topic and found that 71% don't believe $1 million is enough for the average American family. Most said families need to save double, or more than triple, the amount.

"Younger generations, especially, need to set their retirement goals higher than other generations and start saving as early as possible," says Craig Hogan, Scottrade's director of customer-relationship management and reporting. . . .

Generation Y (ages 18 to 26) needs to save at least $2 million, according to 77% of advisers. Forty percent put the figure at $3 million.

If corporations have no intention of raising wages in real dollars and corporations have no intention of veering from financially catastrophic and corrupt economics, yet the cost of living keeps rising ever higher . . . where, exactly, do they propose the $2 million come from?

Do they know that literally the only way to acheive that astronomic sum by retirement is to start saving from the time they're around 6 to 8 years old, have a lucrative (not just a mediocre) well-paying career, never have a layoff or a financial disaster, go to a school that's not going to put them six figures in debt . . . in other words, do they not get that such a near improbability depends almost entirely on every single move they make in their lives being the right one??

"Wait, I've been paying into that system for 40 years and so have you! And now you want some Republican to take that money and give to his buddies on Wall Street so they can gamble that away, too?"

We were a big country with lots of land. Jefferson foresaw us as an agrarian nation.

In 1790, 93% of the population of the United States was rural, most of them farmers. By 1990, only 200 years later, barely 2% of our population are farmers.

http://www.ncagr.gov/stats/general/history.htm

The kind of society we have now was unthinkable.

Things have changed.

When a person works for a wage all his life, he does not have a farm to sell or lease to others at the end. The 1930s were a time of migration from farms to cities -- and Social Security was created to respond to that new reality.

I've always learned it the other way. If social security is the only thing you will have then you will be perpetually dependent on the current legislative body for your entire well being.

That thought scares the bejeebus out of me.

my question to you is why do you pretend all people have a choice.... you state it's scary that people would depend on SS alone... what makes you think they chose that route. You do realize most people have no choice, and what little SS gives them is everything they have?

Be scared... now place yourself in their shoes and wonder why it is that so many depend on SS, and why some people want to destroy that last resort of security by privatizing it? It takes a very sick/apathetic human being to wish, never mind want such a thing, dontcha think?

to declare bankruptcy. It is a true safety net for the elderly although they do make you pay your student loans from it so in that sense your creditors can take it. Nobody has to accept Social Security if they don't want it or feel they don't need it.

Many people save and then have to spend their savings before they reach the retirement age. You never know, and once you pass a certain age, you probably can't work anymore. Just what that age is depends on the person.

Most people just don't earn enough during their lives. Of course, most of us also suffer financial setbacks along the way -- a foreclosure, childcare costs, illness, loss of a job. And often we have these setbacks several times during our lives. So, the idea that the average person can save enough to retire is just unrealistic.

Right now, many baby boomers are cashing in their retirement savings just to keep alive.

I knew a couple who had a thriving business. Rioters came and burned it down. They never regained their financial balance. Another couple with a thriving business simply ran into financial trouble when the current meltdown reached their business way back in maybe 2006, thereabouts -- before anyone realized what was going on.

Watch the hubris. You too could have unexpected problems. Any of us could. Pride cometh before the fall. So true.

Low wages = low savings = no independent retirement savings.

But that crap at Wal-Mart is really cheap!

were baby boomers and older people. We do not plan to rely only on Social Security, but most people are unable to accumulate enough retirement savings to live on them. And the stock market is so crooked that you really should not rely on that.

While you may have additional savings, the foundation -- the reliable part you know will always be there -- is Social Security. That's the reality.

You can spin tales about responsibility and saving, but they are just stories for most of us.

It's the Social Security check that pays for the groceries and the rent for most over-65s since the Fall of 2008.

Try raising a family of two children on $50,000 per year or its equivalent, and see how much you have in your retirement savings by the time you are 65.

all their savings because they were unable to find another full-time job.

Tell that to people who worked at low-wage jobs all their lives.

This wisdom, unfortunately, is what so many heartless people are lacking. They are doing well, so there must be something wrong with those who are not.

I am not a believer, but more people should remember that old saying, "There but for the grace of God, go I." It reflects the more humble type of Christianity I was raised around, than the mean-spirited, angry stuff today. Not to say that all Christianity today is that way, just the ones that get attention.

move into expensive homes that I didn't think I could afford. I wondered, "How are they managing that?" I was utterly baffled.

In the Fall of 2008, of course, I found out.

People think they can borrow with their left hand and put money in the stock market with their right hand and everything will be all right. It won't. And the money in a person's 401(K) is usually invested in mutual funds -- the stock market. A fool and his money . . . . .

Bully for you.

seniors on their savings?

If you think you are going to save enough to live on the interest when you retire, think again.

You won't be able to do that unless the economy improves drastically.

Social Security is an absolute necessity. It will be for you when the time comes. You are living in an illusion.

....borrowing from the most fiscally responsible federal program of all time - - - the ONLY federal program to run a surplus of $2.3 trillion - - - the ONLY federal program which is funded so that it is able to pay all benefits in full until 2037 - - - - - the Social Security system.

The uber-rich who got historically low income tax rates (during a time of simultaneous wars, no less) are the freeloaders.

And because they don't want to give up their unprecedentedly low income tax rates (which is the only way to balance the federal general fund deficit, other than REDUCING DEPT OF DEFENSE SPENDING) they don't want to honor the bonds owned by the Social Security Trust Fund. Specifically, they want to slash Social Security benefits so low that they can be met WITHOUT EVER REDEEMING THE BONDS (their linguistic camouflage for this is the euphemistic term "sustainable solvency" which sounds wonderful, but in fact, is defined as having steadily GROWING Trust Fund balances, which also sounds great, especially for the freeloaders who benefit by NEVER having the Trust Fund bonds redeemed - - - that is to say the uber-rich freeloaders who have been getting historically unprecedented low income tax rates only because of the loans of the surpluses of the Social Security Trust Fund.

So the right wing not only does not want to pay back the funds the SS Trust Fund loaned the Treasury, which are necessary to pay the FUNDED OBLIGATIONS of the Trust Fund (to beneficiaries) IN FULL until 2037, but they want to falsely portray those who have funded their retirement benefits with decades of patroll & SE tax payments as "welfare recipients), while ignoring the freeloading uber-rich who want to make the plundering of the SS Trust Fund PERMANENT!

If so, I would ask her why she doesn't insist that her parents stop collecting "welfare" and, instead, go out and get a job or rely on her for support. Chances are that would have shut her up.

You may or may not have made a dent in that thick head of hers, but at least you did one thing right----you gave her a different conspiracy theory to deal with. And gawd knows people like this need some conspiracy against them.

It doesn't matter that they claim they put money in it. We all know that it's the BANK that put the money there.

Perfectly clear, huh?

...can generically be called welfare. What's offensive about labeling SS as welfare is not that recipients are being lumped in with less deserving persons, but that we should attach any stigma to benefits that we as a society have knowingly enacted. Welfare programs exist so that ordinary people can have at least a survival subsistence. The real shame is that we have so many people who need it.

was in letting politicians have a so much say in how it is run.

Applause for staying calm when confronted by such...stupidity.

K and R.

without an understanding of Social Security?

If they are old enough to be on SS, I'd ask "So you are a welfare queen?"
If theyre not old enough then I'd ask "So you are saying your parents and grandparents are welfare queens?"

Won't that make her happy, not to be tempted by that evil government into taking welfare?

is not only about the security of the individual but it literally about the Security of Society as a whole. It provides stability, fairness, calmness, smoothing, and safety nets so that society can function and endure and so that the wealthy can continue to rake it in.

for the corporations - Socialism for the rich.

Working people pay every week for thirty, forty or fifty years into their Social Security fund from the taxes taken out of their paychecks each week, so they will have something when they retire.

The corporations don't give a fuck about them, they aren't making money & profits for them any longer!

The corporations and republicans who want to privatize Social Security and give all our money to these incompetent corporations - the same greedy lying bailed-out banking & investment corporations will steal everyones pension, that's their goal - What idiot doesn't believe it?

Through more corporate banking bail-outs, investment banking corporations filing bankruptcies, some kind of slimy scam or most likely, the republicans creating legislation for them do it.

And the federal government (our taxes) will have to pick up the tab from what these lying despicable corporations will steal from us & our pensions- that will be socked away in some off-shore banks for these sickening greedy heartless bastards!

These cold-hearted republicans, the rich & their corporations don't give one fuck about the American worker or small business!!

who is very much against SS & Medicare, is a fan of Ayn Rand . I reminded her that even Ayn Rand took SS/Medicare. She replied back to me "she paid for it so it was hers!"

It made my head spin!!!!

Many conservatives are twisted! LOL

Your response was full of facts, details and common sense. Hopefully it gave this person pause for thought.

and keeping people from living in box in your alley is the right thing to do. Social Security is NOT welfare.

And when it is time to retire you are supposed to be able to get a return on that lifetime investment!



I have paid my share into it since 1972

if we're paying into the system ourselves? Huh?
:wtf:

It is insurance, but means testing and lifting the cap make it more like welfare.