Sanders will increase wealth of ordinary Americans

[tzor]

Social Security is NOT a ponzi scheme, where are you getting your information from? The Republican debate?

SOURCE

According to the institute’s data, a two-earner couple receiving an average wage — $44,600 per spouse in 2012 dollars — and turning 65 in 2010 would have paid $722,000 into Social Security and Medicare and can be expected to take out $966,000 in benefits. So, this couple will be paid about one-third more in benefits than they paid in taxes.

Given the limitations of the investments of the Social Security system (this ain't CAPERS) such large ROI can only be obtained by adding more people into the system to pay the returns of those presently retired. When you need to expand the base in order to maintain the returns you have the classic definition of the "Ponzi" scheme. This can be seen in that those who are retiring in the future will be getting a negative ROI.

[Bernie Sanders]

Of course you get your info from a right wing source.

Here's the facts:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/are-your-social-security-taxes-a-good-investment/
Social Security is a good investment! In fact the fund is fully funded until 2030 and with Bernie Sanders plan to lift the $118,500 limit on taxable income for Social Security to whatever income someone earns, this will make social Security fully funded into the 22nd Century.

[GoranZ]

Of course you get your info from a right wing source.

Here's the facts:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/are-your-social-security-taxes-a-good-investment/
Social Security is a good investment! In fact the fund is fully funded until 2030 and with Bernie Sanders plan to lift the $118,500 limit on taxable income for Social Security to whatever income someone earns, this will make social Security fully funded into the 22nd Century.

[jgordon1111]

Lol social security, fuk Ronald Reagan, that prick and his wife , destroyed social security April 1983 along with Alan Greenspan and wall street,
Seems that everyone has selective memory as to who was the first commy in the white house.

[Bernie Sanders]

Lol social security, fuk Ronald Reagan, that prick and his confirmed commy bitch wife , destroyed social security April 1983 along with Alan Greenspan and wall street,
Seems that everyone has selective memory as to who was the first commy in the white house.

If Social Security was privately invested in publicly traded stocks in 2008-2009...well I guess a lot of retirees would of lost everything.

[GoranZ]

Lol social security, fuk Ronald Reagan, that prick and his confirmed commy bitch wife , destroyed social security April 1983 along with Alan Greenspan and wall street,
Seems that everyone has selective memory as to who was the first commy in the white house.

If Social Security was privately invested in publicly traded stocks in 2008-2009...well I guess a lot of retirees would of lost everything.

Bernie's Games...

[tzor]

If Social Security was privately invested in publicly traded stocks in 2008-2009...well I guess a lot of retirees would of lost everything.

Cherry picking years is the actions of a small mind. But then again, I don't really care. All I need to point out is the returns on investments provided by CalPERS.

The report released Tuesday by the California Public Employees' Retirement System showed an overall 18.4% return on investments for the year that ended June 30. That's compared with a 10.4% average annual return for the last three years. The rate of return far exceeded the fund's official 7.5% goal set by the CalPERS board.

[Bernie Sanders]

So, you are for taxpayer finance pension plans for public unions, then?

What kind of Conservative are you?

[tzor]

So, you are for taxpayer finance pension plans for public unions, then?

You are not very good at misdirection, are you? It's a sad fact of life that all public employees are taxpayer financed.

Because, if they weren't ... they wouldn't be "public" employees!

Never the less, you can do better than US Treasury Bonds. There is no real investment in SS funds. There is no way in hell the Federal Government is going to make good on all those IOU's that are in the SS Trust Fund.

[patches70]

If you pay all your working life into SS and then die the day before you are due to collect, you are screwed. Most of that money is gone for you and your family. On the other hand, if all the money you had contributed had instead been put into a decent IRA then your family gets that money.

Any way you objectively look at it any person would be better off funding their own retirement instead of having to rely on the government's half assed retirement account which was never intended to be a retirement account in the first place. It's just supposed to be a safety net which only helps the most stupid of our citizens who never bothered to prepare for their own retirement.

Anyone who is counting on SS to take care of their financial needs when they get too old to work are all idiots and fools. Kinda like the people who would vote for the real Bernie Sanders who, though fairly honest and straightforward, is living in a delusional dreamland where unicorns fart good fortunes for everyone.

[patches70]

Bernie Sanders' plan for the American future-

[mrswdk]

Has Bernie Sanders (the real one) completely ruled out tax increases or something?

Like, pretty much every central, northern and western European country has things like healthcare and tertiary education that cost very little/nothing at the point of delivery, and these are paid for by having higher levels of taxation. Unless Sanders claims he can provide all those things without raising taxes, I don't really understand why everyone in this thread is rattling on about how government welfare will bankrupt 'murica.

[mrswdk]

Anyone who is counting on SS to take care of their financial needs when they get too old to work are all idiots and fools.

Or, perhaps, just poor.

[patches70]

Haha, mrswdk. Tell me, is this the road to prosperity?-

Or, perhaps, just poor

Sure, there are poor, there will always be poor. Please point to any time in human history that there were no poor?
The poor should be helped. There is no argument there. The question is how to help the poor. People like Bernie Sanders (and you apparently) say that the government should help the poor. The government is an illusionary person. So basically when you put the burden of helping the poor on the government you are simply inserting middlemen into helping the poor.

Instead of an individual giving their money to the local church who has dedicated themselves to helping the poor, the individual instead has the money taken by force by government officials who then distribute the money to their favorite organizations to help the poor. Part of the money taken from the individual is used to pay the salaries of those same officials whose jobs were created to help the poor. Those salaries siphon off ever increasing percentages of the money confiscated thus giving less "bang for the buck" in helping the poor.

I'm saying that helping the poor can be done better and more efficiently through private sources based on voluntary exchanges that don't rely on the use of force to achieve. The government is the exercise in the application of force and anytime you inject force into anything it's no wonder things just get worse.

Not only that, when you extend the burden of helping the poor to the government (who is never held accountable for abuses or unintended consequences BTW) then individuals become less inclined to helping the poor on their own ("I already gave at the office!").

Anyway, if you are so concerned with the poor then go help them. No one is stopping you. It's a great lessen to teach the children.

I had dinner one night with some libtard friends of mine. Their little daughter said that when she grows up she's going to be President and she'll end the plight of the poor. Her parents beamed at her, their little angel the parents said they were so proud. I of course couldn't help myself. "You don't have to wait until you're grown up" I said. "Come over to my house tomorrow. You can mow the grass, wash my car, clean out the gutters, dig out the drainage pipe that is clogged and I'll give you a hundred bucks. You can take that hundred bucks down to the grocery store where you see all the homeless people and you can give that hundred bucks to them."
The little girl looks at me, her cute little face all scrunched up and said "that's stupid! Why would I do that? You could just go down and hire them to do that work instead."
"Exactly. So why do you think you need to be President to help the poor?"
I haven't been invited back to dinner since then....

[jgordon1111]

My, my, patches, you should have known better, you dared to try to instruct a child on the need to earn rather than accepting handouts. A unforgivable breach in ettiquite.

[patches70]

My, my, patches, you should have known better, you dared to try to instruct a child on the need to earn rather than accepting handouts. A unforgivable breach in ettiquite.

Yeah, what was I thinking, right?

These statists and collectivists just don't get it. Everyone knows the story in the Bible of the Good Samaritan. That is an example a charity, which by definition must be voluntary. If we apply the thinking of the statists and collectivists to the story of the Good Samaritan we get a different outcome. To wit-

Guy gets robbed, beaten and his broken body tossed in the ditch. Some people walk by and ignore him. A government official comes along, sees the guy and thinks "someone needs to help this guy". Official looks around and sees the Samaritan coming. Official draws his sword, holds it to the Samaritan's neck and says- "you there! Pick this man up. Take him to the inn and bind his wounds, buy him a meal and pay for a room at the inn!" The Samaritan does as he's told because he doesn't want to get his throat cut. Now tell me, is that Charity?
I don't think so, that is something else all together and it's certainly not moral even if it did help the poor bastard in the ditch.

That is the nature of how government supposedly takes care of the poor. Not only is that a problem but also the government does more to hurt the poor than anyone else. Through an economic policy and system that requires inflation to be present (with the stated goal being 2% annually which is exponential growth inflation BTW) I have to ask, who does inflation harm the most? The poor of course who can least afford to pay higher costs for anything.

But whatever, people like Bernie Sanders will always deflect their own responsibilities to others and have zero problem with having others be threatened with violence in the name of "social justice". It ain't justice if people are made to do things at the point of a bayonet and it's certainly not sociable.

[waauw]

I agree with mrswdk on this one. Despite the fact that the private sector does have a better record for efficiency, that doesn't per sé imply effectivity. Many people just refuse to donate to charity regardless of their tax rate. This can clearly be seen on the Gini index. World Bank's 2012 numbers:

• Philippines: 43
• Argentina: 42.3
• Republic of Congo: 42.1
• Russia: 41.6
• USA: 41.1(in 2013)
• Bulgaria: 36
• UK: 32.6
• Switzerland: 31.6
• Germany: 30.1(in 2011)
• Belgium: 27.6
• Sweden: 27.3
• Finland: 27.1

The US, because it doesn't have a decent social security system, is at about the same level as Russian oligarchy and quite a number of banana republics.

[jgordon1111]

My, my, patches, you should have known better, you dared to try to instruct a child on the need to earn rather than accepting handouts. A unforgivable breach in ettiquite.

Yeah, what was I thinking, right?

These statists and collectivists just don't get it. Everyone knows the story in the Bible of the Good Samaritan. That is an example a charity, which by definition must be voluntary. If we apply the thinking of the statists and collectivists to the story of the Good Samaritan we get a different outcome. To wit-

Guy gets robbed, beaten and his broken body tossed in the ditch. Some people walk by and ignore him. A government official comes along, sees the guy and thinks "someone needs to help this guy". Official looks around and sees the Samaritan coming. Official draws his sword, holds it to the Samaritan's neck and says- "you there! Pick this man up. Take him to the inn and bind his wounds, buy him a meal and pay for a room at the inn!" The Samaritan does as he's told because he doesn't want to get his throat cut. Now tell me, is that Charity?
I don't think so, that is something else all together and it's certainly not moral even if it did help the poor bastard in the ditch.

That is the nature of how government supposedly takes care of the poor. Not only is that a problem but also the government does more to hurt the poor than anyone else. Through an economic policy and system that requires inflation to be present (with the stated goal being 2% annually which is exponential growth inflation BTW) I have to ask, who does inflation harm the most? The poor of course who can least afford to pay higher costs for anything.

But whatever, people like Bernie Sanders will always deflect their own responsibilities to others and have zero problem with having others be threatened with violence in the name of "social justice". It ain't justice if people are made to do things at the point of a bayonet and it's certainly not sociable.

Not sure of your response patches, I understood what you were trying to say, the point you made, but your second response was well defined and clear

[patches70]

Many people just refuse to donate to charity regardless of their tax rate.

So? What business is it of yours if your neighbor donates to charity or not?

And also, this means it's ok to point a gun at someone and take "donations" for charity, i.e. help the poor? And you call that charity?

It has another name actually.

[waauw]

Many people just refuse to donate to charity regardless of their tax rate.

So? What business is it of yours if your neighbor donates to charity or not?

And also, this means it's ok to point a gun at someone and take "donations" for charity, i.e. help the poor? And you call that charity?

It has another name actually.

Personal business, none. State business, very much. The government is responsible for safeguarding wealth disparity.
And don't try to side-track the discussion into semantics. You know full well that I'm pointing out the superiority of a well-functioning social security system over a charity fund.

[Metsfanmax]

Many people just refuse to donate to charity regardless of their tax rate.

So? What business is it of yours if your neighbor donates to charity or not?

And also, this means it's ok to point a gun at someone and take "donations" for charity, i.e. help the poor? And you call that charity?

It has another name actually.

Personal business, none. State business, very much. The government is responsible for safeguarding wealth disparity.
And don't try to side-track the discussion into semantics. You know full well that I'm pointing out the superiority of a well-functioning social security system over a charity fund.

Meanwhile patches is busy trying to use rhetorical sophistry to disarm your point instead of actually engaging with the real discussion about the best way to maximize social welfare. If you think about all of the ways in which the world is complicated and hard to adjust to, the chance that the optimal solution to every problem is "minimize governmental intervention" is pretty darn small. At the end of the day, his argument reduces to "I got mine on my own, so you get yours on your own," because he fails to recognize -- or more likely chooses to ignore -- how much of his wealth (in absolute terms) is due to the underlying social fabric.

[patches70]

Many people just refuse to donate to charity regardless of their tax rate.

So? What business is it of yours if your neighbor donates to charity or not?

And also, this means it's ok to point a gun at someone and take "donations" for charity, i.e. help the poor? And you call that charity?

It has another name actually.

Personal business, none. State business, very much. The government is responsible for safeguarding wealth disparity.
And don't try to side-track the discussion into semantics. You know full well that I'm pointing out the superiority of a well-functioning social security system over a charity fund.

I don't know what the government of whatever country you live in is required to do, but in the US there is no where in the Constitution that gives the Federal government the responsibility for "safeguarding wealth disparity".

You think I'm arguing semantics, but how did this wealth disparity come to be? According to Barrack Obama it's partly because of the tax code. He admits government's role in this wealth disparity. And your solution is to trust the people to "fixing" this wealth disparity are the same ones who helped create it? Seriously?

You wanna address wealth disparity then you should be railing against income taxes. The rich don't pay income taxes because they don't have any income. The middle class and the poor pay the income taxes and they are the ones who can least afford them. After all, a man's labors are his own are they not?
You have no claim on your neighbors wages from digging ditches even if you claim it's for helping the poor. Unfortunately you should know better than anyone that government doesn't use the money they take from everyone to "help the poor".

You also ignore the inflation, every single central bank in the world is trying to pump more inflation and who does that hurt? Certainly not the rich.
Point in fact, during Obama's administration the Federal government virtually took over the entire college loan industry and pumped some $1 trillion into it. Admirable some would think as the goal was to get more people into college. The unintended consequences was a large sum of money was suddenly introduced into a niche market and caused the prices in that market to skyrocket. It's basic economics really.
Bernie's genius plan is "free" college for everyone. Ha! Raise your hands if you think the college teachers are going to work for free. Or the janitors on college campuses are going to work for free, or the textbooks are going to be created and printed and given away for free.
I can already tell you what happens if Bernie got his way, the costs estimated for such a program will skyrocket exponentially. But hey, who cares about results when one has a noble reason, right?

Decades ago wages kept up with inflation. This is no longer true and there isn't a damn thing politicians or government can do about it because they've boxed themselves in with past policies. Noble in nature but foolish in application. It's not like no one ever warned about the consequences, lots of people tried to explain. The wealth disparity is such that those on the bottom, the "working poor" don't have a chance to get out of debt because the currency they are paid in doesn't keep up with the rate of inflation. The governments needs the inflation because they are in such debt. Inflation is good if you are in debt, it's good for the rich who don't earn wages or income, but for everyone else it's just another hidden tax, the most insidious of taxes as it robs the purchasing power of hard working people who can't understand why they keep falling deeper and deeper into the hole.
At the same time the rich keep getting richer because their assets are inflating at an artificial rate and at such a rate that the little people are priced out. Then the inevitable collapse comes and government bails out the rich because, frankly, they are the one's contributing to the politicians election efforts. After all it's not like the poor have the money to contribute now do they?

Some like to blame the failing family structure or the loss of morals or the pursuit of the material over the moral. but it's all about the currency. Since the currency is created and manipulated by central banks who are partners with federal government, you start to see that relying on government to fix this wealth disparity is a trip into the absurd.

But hey, keep the faith if you want, it won't change the reality. Governments will keep pouring money into a never ending hole of social welfare at ever inflating prices and the rich will just get richer and the poor get poorer until it all just collapses as it always has through out the entirety of human history. All fiat currencies have a 100% failure rate and ours and the European Union's currencies are no different. Thinking "but this time it'll be different" is insanity.
A brief period of turmoil which may or may not include large amounts of violence and loss of life will give way to yet another fiat scheme and the whole stinking process just starts over again.

Semantics? Nope, it's reality.

The next great idea is going to be getting rid of cash all together. That process is beginning now as you probably know, waauw. The EU is getting rid of the 500 euro and there are calls for the US to get rid of the $100 bill. Few know that if you take all the $100 bills and all of the 500 euro bills, that is more than half of all the currency circulating in the world today.
The stated goal of course is to "stop crime" and such nonsense. The truth is the currencies are dying because fiat currencies always die the same way. This is just TPTB trying to get ahead of the coming shit storm and they count on everyone being ignorant or stupid.
None of this will end well but it's not like anyone seems to give a shit either. So whatever, put your faith in the very sociopaths who have created all this mess if you want. It might be a good idea to have some vital skills that are desired by people no matter what the situation is though. Maybe like be a doctor or mechanic or engineer or the like. Types of knowledge that civilizations rely on to thrive and grow.

[jgordon1111]

Damn patches you didnt hold anything back did you, my suggestion to millinials, other less than prepared people would be find some Amish or real farmer's, learn to shut up and survive if this worse case scenario should happen, not saying it will, but look around and pay attention to what is happening

[patches70]

Damn patches you didnt hold anything back did you, my suggestion to millinials, other less than prepared people would be find some Amish or real farmer's, learn to shut up and survive if this worse case scenario should happen, not saying it will, but look around and pay attention to what is happening

Mets and waauw think I don't care about the poor. This isn't true at all but they can think what they want I suppose. I just think the best way to help regular people is to let people keep what they earn, have a stable medium with which to convert one's labors into the goods and services they require to live a just, moral, productive and hopefully happy life.

What is really sad is that everything, and I mean every single thing produced today that people need to live, is cheaper now than ever in the history of the entire human species. Never has food been so cheap and plentiful, never has housing been so adequate and plentiful, never has there been more opportunity and hope than there is now, today. At least if you measure in anything other than whatever fiat currency one is using. In fiat currency everything is more expensive than ever and hope is fading for the most vulnerable.

Fifty years ago an ounce of gold would buy you a hundred loaves or so of bread. Today and ounce of the exact same gold would buy you eight hundred loaves of bread. And it's the same for any other "thing" you could imagine to buy, priced in anything other than fiat currency. As things should be cheaper. We are better at growing food, conserving resources, more efficient ways of doing things, mass production, better materials and knowledge etc etc.
How can one explain why everything is cheaper than ever before and yet too many people still can't afford the basic things they need to live a decent life?
And people think the politicians are going to fix this? The politicians caused this when they opted for the moral hazard that is fiat currency. Fiat currency has it's pro's that's for sure, but people tend to ignore or forget the inherent flaws in such a system.
And in the US and the euro it's not just a fiat currency but it's a debt based fiat currency which is the biggest and longest running scam in human civilization that is rooted in outright fraud.
At least the Greenback and the Continental weren't debt based. But they failed as well because of the flaws in fiat currency.

It's so bad that the thing that the politicians and bankers, in the US and across the pond in the EU, fear the most is deflation. God forbid things got cheaper priced in currency. That could be a boon to the poor, if they could hold onto their meager jobs during a deflation cycle.
And it's always the same, the central banks fearing deflation start printing like fools trying to inject inflation and it gets out of control. It just keeps happening over and over again and no one seems to think "hey, maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with fiat currency systems".

The Ben Bernanke was before Congress and he was asked "What is the definition of a dollar?"
We all know what it is, A Federal Reserve Note is a note of a debt owed. A dollar represents what the government owes the Central Bank (most people don't realize that but that's what a Federal Reserve Note is, and that's what a euro is as well, a note of debt owed to the Central Bank). The Ben Bernanke answered that question with-
"A dollar is what you can buy with it". Haha! He went on about purchasing power, but that purchasing power is decided by arbitrary judgment by the Federal Reserve and it changes constantly and artificially contrary to market forces. And this is the basis upon which the politicians are supposed to fix the "wealth disparity"?
It's like trying to build a house on shifting sand, the house ain't gonna stand for very long. With such an arbitrary and shifting value of the very thing we use to buy things and with which we measure "wealth disparity" is it any wonder we have wealth disparity?

[Bernie Sanders]

So, you are for taxpayer finance pension plans for public unions, then?

You are not very good at misdirection, are you? It's a sad fact of life that all public employees are taxpayer financed.

Because, if they weren't ... they wouldn't be "public" employees!

Never the less, you can do better than US Treasury Bonds. There is no real investment in SS funds. There is no way in hell the Federal Government is going to make good on all those IOU's that are in the SS Trust Fund.

The difference is that Social Security as it is, will be there for you, once you retire. Gambling American's retirement on the stock market is a gamble.

No matter how hard the stock market crashes, Social Security will be there for you.