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Fixing social security

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

  • Remove the upper pay-in limit

    Votes: 64 48.1%
  • Continue to push back the age of first withdrawal as needed

    Votes: 9 6.8%
  • Reduce benefits to maintain system solvency

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

    Votes: 44 33.1%
  • Don’t know

    Votes: 12 9.0%

  • Total voters
    133
Try starting up a business in California today, and you will understand the issue rather quickly.
Out of curiosity, do you think any nation or state is doing it right?

Big country/state with big cities? City of at least 2MM total pop of 10MM.
 
About 300 posts ago you guys were saying SS was a safety net for the less fortunate. Now you are comparing it to a retirement fund. How does a pay go system fund itself when a good number of the collective don't have to participate?

Here's a glaring loophole that should get removed going forward if we truly are interested in fixing SS. Odds are slim to none that it will get removed IMO
1) I never said it was or compared it to a retirement fund. It is an insurance program to provide some modest income in old age. It is not pay in X and receive future payments equally the FV of X. But neither is a pension.
2) you are usually complaining that too much money is coming out of SS, now you are complaining about people not paying in. Pay more in taxes- either the employer, the employee, or both.

However, I do agree that CA is basically treating it pari passu with the retirement pension, and that causes some problems given the structure and history of SS. How much that "costs" SS I really couldn't guess.
 
About 300 posts ago you guys were saying SS was a safety net for the less fortunate. Now you are comparing it to a retirement fund. How does a pay go system fund itself when a good number of the collective don't have to participate?

Here's a glaring loophole that should get removed going forward if we truly are interested in fixing SS. Odds are slim to none that it will get removed IMO
Because we should soak cops and teachers for every cent but Bezos should only pay $9,932.40
 
Out of curiosity, do you think any nation or state is doing it right?

Big country/state with big cities? City of at least 2MM total pop of 10MM.
Moscow, Russia according to Tucker.😉😁 No, I think the world is head for a rough patch in the coming years, that few are prepared to deal with. What about you? Who is doing it right iyo?
 
Moscow, Russia according to Tucker.😉😁 No, I think the world is head for a rough patch in the coming years, that few are prepared to deal with. What about you? Who is doing it right iyo?

I agree with you, I think all the big developed nations are going through similar struggles. Scandinavia et al. only work because of huge natural resources versus the size of their population.
 
Here's a list of California startups. See anything that interests you?

OpenAI is obviously note worthy - Discord is a money maker - and that was just in the first five on my screen - didn’t bother scrolling further. Only need 1 in a 100 to work out to drive the worlds most dynamic economy. It is silly to suggest the CA hasn’t created more successful companies in the last 30 yrs. Not everybody can inherit a ranch that doesn’t make money without govt subsidiaries . . . .
 
Moscow, Russia according to Tucker.😉😁 No, I think the world is head for a rough patch in the coming years, that few are prepared to deal with. What about you? Who is doing it right iyo?
Doom and gloom have been sold 24/7 for the last 3,000+ years. And every so often something very bad does happen and the warning immediately proceeding it appears for a moment to be prescient - and then we realize that thousands of warnings before it were wrong and there was nothing special or insightful going on here. So, like a broken watch being right twice a day, doom/gloom will be right every 100 yrs or so. No reason to think you have any special insight into a particular event today - or how one would be prepared for it. Had a neighbor in ND who was sure nuclear winter was a lock guarantee in 1978. Wonder if he still has the 500 cans of baked beans he hoarded?
 
I agree with you, I think all the big developed nations are going through similar struggles. Scandinavia et al. only work because of huge natural resources versus the size of their population.
Agree. I would suspect that the rebuild after WWII resulted in the same demographic trends in these countries. That and the increasing cost and treatments of healthcare over that time frame has put everyone in the same situation.

This belief across this thread that we are in this situation because SS or public pensions are run with the same efficiency and effectiveness as Truth Social just isn't accurate.
 
Try starting up a business in California today, and you will understand the issue rather quickly.
And if you're in retail you get to watch your inventory leave the store without payment. Probably not the best "business policy" CA could embrace or at least tolerate. It's a "social tax" that doesn't necessarily show up on paper.

Bill Maher occasionally mentions how many years it's taken him, jumping through California state/local regulatory hoops, to try and set up solar power at his house. At some point the regulation becomes stifling and companies and people move elsewhere.
 
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Try starting up a business in California today, and you will understand the issue rather quickly.
Starting up a Tech or Bio company way easier in CA, MN or MA (Or TX) than in MT. But ya, starting a hardware store, or a lumber yard would probably be harder.
 
Starting up a Tech or Bio company way easier in CA, MN or MA (Or TX) than in MT. But ya, starting a hardware store, or a lumber yard would probably be harder.
In case you were unaware, Bozeman is now a federally designated tech hub.

 
Starting up a Tech or Bio company way easier in CA, MN or MA (Or TX) than in MT. But ya, starting a hardware store, or a lumber yard would probably be harder.
Biotechnology industry is contracting right now, not expanding.

 
We could liquidate Bezos entire fortune. That would pay a couple months of interest on the debt. Who should we shake down after that?
My point is more this;

Walmart has > 10,000 full time employees on SNAP benefits, McDonalds several thousand... bunch of other big companies. This companies lobby against minimum wage and required benefits, and then essentially have their payroll subsidized through various gov programs.

Walton's are making a killing.

Bezos, I'm sure has similar things going on with Amazon. So no I don't think he should personally have to give all his money to prop up social security. I do think it's weird to focus on whether civil servants making 50k a year should be pulling SS and a pension while giving Walmart et al. a pass for using Fed assistant programs as part of their "benefits package".
 

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