Should Social Security be eliminated entirely?

[mosdef]

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Invest your own money with a private fund manager and then you won't need social security.

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Did you just accidentally make an argument for the elimination of social security? Isn't this what the rest of us have been saying all along?

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Lost me on that one Mos. Most of the people on this forum are probably intelligent and capable of doing much better with their social security funds than the government is doing. However, we do not represent the country at large. The vast majority of people do not save properly.

Do you dispute that?

Therefore, in order to avoid the economic disaster of the 1930's the social security system was set up as a safety net. No one has shown that there is no longer a need for that safety net.

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The status quo is justified because it is the status quo. If you think you need a safety net, then feel free to participate in some safety net scheme. You haven't shown any justification for forcing others into one. "People don't do the things I think they should" is not a justification.

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Oh god, I just made a post that sounds like this. I don't like agreeing with pvn. It makes me feel so dirty. I miss the old days.

[bocablkr]

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Irrelevant. You need to justify why you have to take away a chunk of my earnings and force me to participate in your plan. So far you have come up with:

1. I am too young (unsubstantiated and irrelevent).
2. I have not taken enough economics courses (unsubstantiated).
3. Investing in options is risky (irrelevant).
4. We will have an economic disaster if we don't take 12% of pay from everybody (unsubstantiated).

Can you do any better than that?


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1). Too young to understand the mindset of the people that do not want social security touched.

2). You might have.

3). Taken out of context - never said we should invest in options (see other post).

4). Do you really think that if you didn't have to pay the social security tax from the beginning that you would now have 12% greater buying power? My contention is that it would be smaller. Therefore, the tax itself is not as bad as you believe. You may disagree with this if you choose.

5). The only point that matters is that IMO the average person can't or won't save properly for their retirement. The government has choosen to save for them which I agree with. To believe that they should be allowed to do what they want and live with the consequences is naive. There will still be cost to the rest of us for their poor decisions. Society will have to pick up the slack for all the people that did not save. These people will not just be left on the street to die or fend for themselves. You can pay now or pay later but we will all have to pay eventually.

[mosdef]

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Do you really think that if you didn't have to pay the social security tax from the beginning that you would now have 12% greater buying power? My contention is that it would be smaller. Therefore, the tax itself is not as bad as you believe. You may disagree with this if you choose.

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Your assertion is complete BS and you can't back it up so please for the love of all that is holy and good don't tell me that the taxes aren't as bad as I think they are. I'll decide how bad the impact on me is, thanks.

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5). The only point that matters is that IMO the average person can't or won't save properly for their retirement.

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The only thing that matters is your opinion? When did you get dictator status?

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The government has choosen to save for them which I agree with.

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Wrong!!! The government has decided to save for them and everybody else primarily with funds provided by everybody else.

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To believe that they should be allowed to do what they want and live with the consequences is naive. There will still be cost to the rest of us for their poor decisions.

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Yeah, there's also a cost to the government piddling away my money and handing over what's left to those that didn't bother to save for retirement. But hey, I'm sure that the elected officials with 4 years to their next election have engineered this 40 year plan perfectly. It's not like they have a motivation to defer costs to the period after their term in office or anything.

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Society will have to pick up the slack for all the people that did not save. These people will not just be left on the street to die or fend for themselves. You can pay now or pay later but we will all have to pay eventually.

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Uh, actually you're saying that I have to pay for it right now, at the levels determined by someone else, into a security arrangement designed by someone else.

[pvn]

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You have gotten way off course. You are also taking quotes out of context.

The original point was that the government needs to save for people's retirement because most people can't or won't do it properly by themselves. No one has proved otherwise.

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Flipping the burden of proof. Make claim, force others to prove the counterfactual. Standard.

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Please, no AC hijacks.

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This has nothing to do with AC. Please, no fake-AC-hijack smokescreens.

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I am not flipping anything. I just don't post links to the obvious. Anyone using google can get hundreds of links that support my assertion. I am not forcing anyone to dispute this but I will gladly read any links to the contrary.

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I can find lots of people who have a personal, subjective opinion that government "needs" to do XYZ or ABC. And I can find an equal number of people for any particular position that feel the government "doesn't need" to do XYZ. That doesn't "prove" your ASSERTION, so there is no need for anyone to "prove otherwise."

[bocablkr]

Your responses are drifting more and more into the AC mindset. When you start to question whether the government has the right to tax the general population for the benefit of a smaller group then I think it is time to stop talking. If you feel that way there really is no further discussion needed.

I will not change your mind and you won't change mine.

If you dispute the following and call it BS then again I think we are at an impasse - Do you really think that if you didn't have to pay the social security tax from the beginning that you would now have 12% greater buying power? My contention is that it would be smaller. Therefore, the tax itself is not as bad as you believe.

Just realize that there are a lot of people who do not want social security touched for any reason period. And to do so is political suicide. I just tried to show you some of the reasons for that viewpoint which you don't agree with.

Good chating with you anyway..

[mosdef]

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Your responses are drifting more and more into the AC mindset.

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No. You are saying that "we should not touch Social Security". While this status quo self-justifying stand point is the antithesis of AC, that does not make all arguments against it AC. Labelling my point of view AC and then dismissing it as irrelevant ACism does not defend your point of view.

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When you start to question whether the government has the right to tax the general population for the benefit of a smaller group then I think it is time to stop talking.

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Again, I'm not arguing from the point that the government shouldn't interfere because it has no right to interfere. I'm arguing that the interference is ultimately destructive in this case and we would be better off without it.

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If you feel that way there really is no further discussion needed.

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We haven't had a discussion yet. We've had you making unsubstantiated and/or irrelevant assertions.

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I will not change your mind and you won't change mine.

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I'm not demanding that you change your mind, but you should be prepared to back up your point of view with rational arguments if you're going to lay them out there.

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If you dispute the following and call it BS then again I think we are at an impasse - Do you really think that if you didn't have to pay the social security tax from the beginning that you would now have 12% greater buying power? My contention is that it would be smaller. Therefore, the tax itself is not as bad as you believe.

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Of course I don't believe this. And I have explained why I don't believe this: it implies that he government, by taxing us, has created wealth. I asked you directly: If wages fall to current after tax levels when taxes are removed, where does the wealth that the government used to take go now?!?! If you think that it just vanishes because taxation created that wealth, you are wrong.

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Just realize that there are a lot of people who do not want social security touched for any reason period.

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I don't care what they think if they can't explain how they arrived at that conclusion.

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I just tried to show you some of the reasons for that viewpoint which you don't agree with.

Good chating with you anyway..

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Irrational assertions are not "reasons".

[owsley]

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Your responses are drifting more and more into the AC mindset. When you start to question whether the government has the right to tax the general population for the benefit of a smaller group then I think it is time to stop talking.

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Uh, wow. So its that simple?

[mosdef]

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Your responses are drifting more and more into the AC mindset. When you start to question whether the government has the right to tax the general population for the benefit of a smaller group then I think it is time to stop talking.

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Uh, wow. So its that simple?

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Well, I think the point he's trying to make is that if you think SS is wrong on moral grounds regardless of the potential benefits, then there's no point arguing about the benefits. I am still waiting for justification that the benefits are real, though.

[owsley]

yeah thats true, just when you word it that way you can see how ridiculous the statist argument is. The reason that your average person makes is precisely that they never take those questions seriously, they look at things from the wrong angle because they find questioning whether these programs are fair or right to be absurd or out of the realm of possibility. If you think that questioning the governments right to tax us is not up for debate, you will end up totally missing the point. The smaller scale arguments about the specifics of this and that government plan aren't what is really important, the important argument is the one that bocablkr thinks is not even worth considering.