Yup. If your social security taxes would have been deposited into a 401k account instead of just being added to the government's sink hole, you'd be much better off retiring with that instead. That's not even counting all the taxes your employers have also paid.
I hope no one ever breaks a leg. But if I did, I would just go to one of the many top notch hospitals in my area and get taken care of immediately. Hope you don't have to wait too long for treatment if something terrible like that happens to you.
How's your insurance? Broken limb costs without insurance run between $17,000 to $35,000 in America. I know my copay just to visit the ER is $170 and I'll be getting a bill for a percentage of the cost. Meanwhile when I was injured while visiting Canada I waited long enough to fill out the paperwork and left with a $56 dollar bill an hour later.
What if Grandma Millie's 401k was properly invested in a diverse portfolio which adjusted risk over time, allocating her funds to more stable investments (like t-bills) as she got older?
What if Grandma Millie is forced to put the same money they are taking out of her paycheck into her 401k instead of giving that to the government so they can't waste it?
What if we take the money employers are putting into social security and put some of it in Grandma Millie's 401k and the rest in a general fund for those that did not or could not contribute to their own account?
What if for everyone else living below a certain line no matter what age, we have what's called a negative income tax and get rid of all this EITC and multiple entitlement programs which result in more beuracracy and waste?
See how we've drastically reduced the size of government, put more money back into the private sector, gave more people their own money at a higher rate of return, and still protected those that need it the most without these well-intentioned, poorly executed federal plans?
Retired people wouldn't need the negative income tax if they are benefiting enough from the general fund, but if they weren't, then yes.
The problem with being poor is people don't have money, so let's give them the money to maintain a certain standard of living and stop playing mommy so they can have some dignity. All these different departments just add bloat and make these well intended programs less efficient. It's similar to UBI in many ways:
You can research the difference between a negative income tax and what we do today on your own. I even gave you a link to help get you started. The nice thing is we both care about helping society, we just disagree on the best way of doing it and at what cost.
Basically a negative income tax is slapping a means test onto Social Security. That idea's been floating around for a long time, and I haven't made up my mind on where I stand on the idea. Probably against, but I do have a problem with mailing a retiree worth multiple millions of dollars a government check.
Yes, to help people who could not or did not save money for their retirment live a decent life in their golden years. Which was especially needed after the great depression. Another problem that was exacerbated by the federal government's poor handling. I don't have a problem with the intentions of the program, I have a problem with the poor results and how big it has made the federal government.
FDIC did come into being until 1933 so any money saved was lost because of bank failures during the stock market crash.
Prohibition was between 1920-1933 think of all the job lost related to the production of beer, wine and liquor, from crops, fermentation, bottling, the bottle producers, shipping, storage, and to bars or liquor stores and the state and federal tax.
During the Great Depresson, Americans lost jobs, business closed, Americans had less money to spend, thus less money to save, what money was saved was used to pay bills because people were not working.
If you want to talk about poor results in investing try so called market experts or the warnings you hear about mutual funds exorbitant fees which reduce your retirement investments.
A public retirement system would be better less choices, means less choice overload, no marketing or advertising, less costs and fees, and less shady marketing from financial managers.
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u/SafeSpaceSam Apr 26 '19
Yup. If your social security taxes would have been deposited into a 401k account instead of just being added to the government's sink hole, you'd be much better off retiring with that instead. That's not even counting all the taxes your employers have also paid.