Comments on: I’m Still Counting on Social Security – How About You?

By: trevor

trevor — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:49:00 +0000

Boomers are a bunch of self serving political, social, economical frauds
Free love in the late 60′s, fiscal republicans from 1990. Whatever serves your purpose. Any reasonable person who knows math knows the social security won’t be there, this is a typical Boomer move. They are just counting on next generation not to do the math. It’s probably a good bet because they’ve underfunded the education system for for the youth.

I bet as a gen x person I have paid way more social sec and taxes than 90% of of the population and I’ll see none of the benefits.
My parents are legal Irish immigrants who moved back to Ireland because America not a place to humanely retire and that’s going to crap as well.
Blame Obama, Blame Bush, why not blame yourselves.

Boomers are stealing healthcare from the elderly while stealing the future from the young.
Sorry you can’t retire. BOO f HOO
what are we going to do in 30-50 yrs?
Maybe you shouldn’t have taken out the second mortgage to go on vacation to Jamaica or redo you crappy kitchen.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:14:44 +0000

The Government decided to take money from everyone’s pay check for a promise that the citizen would get a specific amount of money based on income contributions age. Lots (!) of people have figured that into their plans for retirement… sort of like each of us depend on our employer, who takes money from our check to fund a 401K plan, to actually let us have that money when we retire. We can’t pull the social security rug out from under people who have contributed to SS all their working lives and now set some arbitrary amount that you have saved and say “Oh, you managed to save some of your money, well then lets take away what we promised and you figure out how your going live on thousands less than you thought.” It’s not the governments money, they take it from our pay checks, over 6% from the individual and 6% from the employer! This is not an “entitlement” it is money the worker paid in for a promise from our government. If the gov. doesn’t want to live up to the gurantee, then give the individual back the 12% paid in for them plus compounded interest for the years the government had the money and the people will be OK… and look forward to the next election!!!

By: James

James — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:48:36 +0000

Heather,

If you think the goobermint is run by the baby boomers, watch what happens to the party in power on Tuesday. Don’t blame the boomers for this mess – it isn’t their fault.

By: James

James — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:46:30 +0000

Yup, Heather wants to opt out of SS. Why? Probably so she can buy more cool crap at the mall. OMG, look at those boots! Gotta have ‘em………….

By: James

James — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:44:18 +0000

SS will be there for gen xers. Eventually the boomers will start to die off and SS will be in good shape with a huge population paying for it.

If there were a better way I’d say get rid of SS, but there isn’t. I watch gen xers with their flashy cars, ipods, monster TVs, and all manner of waste of money and it is clear they are NOT saving for their futures. That’s why we have SS – for IDIOTS like gen xers! Sorry to be blunt but it’s the truth.

By: Francesca

Francesca — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:29:02 +0000

The question is more will SS be there for the gen xers who are paying for the baby boomers’ retirements?

By: John

John — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:00:22 +0000

The stock market is a ponzi scheme. If 1,000,000 people buy a stock today at $100 each and then try to sell them tomorrow, the first few people will get more than they paid due to rising price, the next batch will get about what they paid, and the rest will get less than they paid with the last 10% getting essentially nothing for their stock. That’s because the stock market is a ponzi scheme that depends on an endless supply of suckers to keep buying into the ponzi scheme.

Just think, your retirement plan, whether pension or 401k, is invested in nothing more than a ponzi scheme! HOLY COW!

By: James

James — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:25:24 +0000

Social Security will be around for a long time, unless the economy actually fails and the government defaults which could actually happen. The current economic crisis is not due to the “baby boomers” it is due to criminal activity in the mortgage industry (loans to those who could not pay), to criminals in the investment ratings agencies (giving AAA ratings to “junk” investments), to criminals in Wall Street investment firms (packaging and reselling “junk” investments as if they were AAA rated when they knew with certainty that they were junk), to criminal activity in the US government (encouraging lenders to give loans to minorities who didn’t have a prayer of being able to repay), to more government criminal acts (spending like drunk sailors and giving tax breaks to the wealthy while the country went bankrupt), to government criminal activity that allowed and encouraged corporations to ship American jobs overseas (that’s where Sue’s job is), etc, etc, etc…… Some of the people involved were baby boomers, BUT 10′s of millions of the people being wiped out by the economic collapse ARE baby boomers.

The current crisis demonstrates in no uncertain terms why Social Security is so important. The markets are full of greedy criminals who only care about making money for themselves and their rich buddies. They’ll take us on short rides with them so we can make a little money for awhile (while they are making a mint using our money) and then WHAM, they steal our money and run, laughing all the way to the South Pacific islands and their Swiss Bank accounts.

Social Security only needs to have the payroll tax increased to say 8% (it’s currently at 6.7%) in order to be rolling in dough. That is a cheap price for an almost guaranteed income in retirement. DO NOT think of Social Security as a retirement plan – it isn’t, think of it as insurance – and all during your working years, scrimp, live frugally, and save every dime you can just as your grandparents did and when you turn 65 or so you’ll do OK most likely. IF the market takes away your private investments just before retirement as it has done for millions of people this past year, then at least you’ll have Social Security and you can perhaps live in a camper trailer somewhere. That’s better than living in a cardboard box or under a bridge which is all that the market can guarantee.

By: Sue

Sue — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:37:08 +0000

Agreed, and no, you can’t opt out. You used to be able to opt out when Social Security was first started, but it has now become a monster that chews through 12% of each paycheck you earn (you may not see the 6% that your employer pays, but it’s still a payroll expense directly tied to your paycheck), regardless of any financial difficulties you may have.

I personally would like to see Social Security retained, but only as a disability program. Persons unable to work due to illness or advanced age should certainly be cared for. However, healthy and well-heeled sixtysomethings who want to quit their desk jobs to have fun should save and use their own money for that privilege. They should not be drawing income from the paychecks of younger people who may not even live to see 65 because they can’t afford health insurance and other necessities. That being said, we need to retain some benefits for all who paid into the system, but we do need to start rolling this monster back.

Unfortunately, this blogger is probably right – the AARP is the most powerful lobbying organization in America, and if you try to take one Social Security check away from one millionaire retiree, then they are going to accuse of you trying to throw all America’s grandparents out into the street in one fell swoop. Don’t let them get away with this – your necessities are as important as anyone else’s and YOU earned those dollars coming out of your checks, not the AARP.

There is talk about eliminating the first 20K of earnings from SS taxes. I hope this passes, and I hope that they apply the same witholding practice used for incomes over the current cap (once you hit the income cap, the taxes disappear from your subsequent paychecks). I think part of the problem is that younger people don’t really think about how much this is costing them – but once they have the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t experience, it should hopefully register on a gut level and get them fighting back against these lobbying groups.

By: Wil

Wil — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:21:08 +0000

Are you kidding me? You are depending on social security just because voters aren’t going to allow it to go away? Who is actually going to PAY for the 77 million retiring baby boomers? That makes about as much since as voting “free money for everyone!” If the government can’t handle managing its own finances, why should it be allowed to handle mine? Also what about the incentive to make money so you don’t end up in a government run “Boomer camp”? The Boomers were the true ME generation, the most spoiled and greediest group around! Why should I pay extra taxes to support them?!?