6 minutes ago, rambo said:

Think cops unions are bad...look at schools and the teacher's pension liabilities.  I think it's up to the schools contributing 34% of a teacher's salary to the pension fund this year.  It's getting out of hand.

Pensions are unsustainable. 401K plan is far Superior. When a company has to pay more for pension benefits to retired workers, then it does in wages to current employees, that system is doomed to collapse. 

2 minutes ago, jsdarkstar said:

Pensions are unsustainable. 401K plan is far Superior. When a company has to pay more for pension benefits to retired workers, then it does in wages to current employees, that system is doomed to collapse. 

Cool

Now do Social Security.

11 minutes ago, rambo said:

Think cops unions are bad...look at schools and the teacher's pension liabilities.  I think it's up to the schools contributing 34% of a teacher's salary to the pension fund this year.  It's getting out of hand.

Just looked up the states required contribution to the PSERS pension this year...$2.75 billion plus 50+million in administrative costs for the pension.

Agreed. Public sector pensions have killed state budgets all over. 

5 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Cool

Now do Social Security.

Ok. 

Workers pay taxes to fund Social Security. When the fund is fully funded, put it in a lock box and prevent Congress from stealing the money to pay for other things. Al Gore was right. 

1 minute ago, jsdarkstar said:

Ok. 

Workers pay taxes to fund Social Security. When the fund is fully funded, put it in a lock box and prevent Congress from stealing the money to pay for other things. Al Gore was right. 

1. They stole the money years ago and replaced it with non-transferrable IOUs

2. There aren't enough workers to support the number of retirees anymore

Defined Benefit Plans are by definition unsustainable, but at least they try and take assets to invest for future payments. Social Security is the literal definition of a Ponzi scheme as new investors pay out redemptions to prior investors. It's Madoff on a much, much, much larger scale.

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

1. They stole the money years ago and replaced it with non-transferrable IOUs

2. There aren't enough workers to support the number of retirees anymore

Defined Benefit Plans are by definition unsustainable, but at least they try and take assets to invest for future payments. Social Security is the literal definition of a Ponzi scheme as new investors pay out redemptions to prior investors. It's Madoff on a much, much, much larger scale.

1. The IOU's will never be repaid, and will never be replaced. Unless congress decides to pay the money back, then it will become unsustainable.

2. Then rich folks like Donald Trump/Gates/Bezos/ etc. should not receive any social security benefits at all and they should pay higher taxes to fund Social Security, for the rest of us. 

8 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

1. They stole the money years ago and replaced it with non-transferrable IOUs

2. There aren't enough workers to support the number of retirees anymore

Defined Benefit Plans are by definition unsustainable, but at least they try and take assets to invest for future payments. Social Security is the literal definition of a Ponzi scheme as new investors pay out redemptions to prior investors. It's Madoff on a much, much, much larger scale.

They should've taken that payroll tax and put it in an retirement account that can be managed but not withdrawn from by the individual until retirement/disability/etc...Then you have your gov't forced savings at 12.4% going into that account every year.  You can see your portion, you can decide how you want it allocated but you can't touch it.  But gov't wouldn't get it's piggy bank.

SS is not a Ponzi scheme. it's a rolling benefits mechanism that relies on the number of workers being consistently overwhelming numerically compared to retirees, which obviously isn't the case.

A Ponzi scheme will always fail because of the leveling. At some point new investors outpace existing, and the amount of money entering the system from the bottom is no longer sufficient to cover the shares "owed" to those at upper levels of the scheme.

By contrast, if you constructed SS in a way that adjusted the retirement eligibility date each year based on the number of workers vs. the number of retirees, you could sustain it indefinitely. The result would be that eligibility date would keep increasing as life expectancy grows (or if the number of workers relative to retirees fell).

I don't know what the numbers are, but suppose that you need 9 workers for every 1 retiree. If, mathematically, that dictated that retirement age was 70, then so be it. People would just have to deal with cold hard facts, which is never a political winner.

The hardships that SS is facing have more to do with the mathematics of the boomer generation. For a long time boomers, making up the bulk of the work force, dwarfed the number of SS recipients. now that boomers are retiring that bill is coming due.

I'm all for upping the SS eligibility age and even means testing it. But it's not the same thing as a Ponzi scheme. 

6 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

SS is not a Ponzi scheme. it's a rolling benefits mechanism that relies on the number of workers being consistently overwhelming numerically compared to retirees, which obviously isn't the case.

A Ponzi scheme will always fail because of the leveling. At some point new investors outpace existing, and the scheme steals from those at the bottom and collapses with funds pushed upward.

By contrast, if you constructed SS in a way that adjusted the retirement eligibility date each year based on the number of workers vs. the number of retirees, you could sustain it indefinitely. The result would be that eligibility date would keep increasing as life expectancy grows (or if the number of workers relative to retirees fell).

I don't know what the numbers are, but suppose that you need 9 workers for every 1 retiree. If, mathematically, that dictated that retirement age was 70, then so be it. People would just have to deal with cold hard facts, which is never a political winner.

The hardships that SS is facing have more to do with the mathematics of the boomer generation. For a long time boomers, making up the bulk of the work force, dwarfed the number of SS recipients. now that boomers are retiring that bill is coming due.

I'm all for upping the SS eligibility age and even means testing it. But it's not the same thing as a Ponzi scheme. 

Sounds just like a failing ponzi scheme to me.

3 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

SS is not a Ponzi scheme. it's a rolling benefits mechanism that relies on the number of workers being consistently overwhelming numerically compared to retirees, which obviously isn't the case.

A Ponzi scheme will always fail because of the leveling. At some point new investors outpace existing, and the amount of money entering the system from the bottom is no longer sufficient to cover the shares "owed" to those at upper levels of the scheme.

By contrast, if you constructed SS in a way that adjusted the retirement eligibility date each year based on the number of workers vs. the number of retirees, you could sustain it indefinitely. The result would be that eligibility date would keep increasing as life expectancy grows (or if the number of workers relative to retirees fell).

I don't know what the numbers are, but suppose that you need 9 workers for every 1 retiree. If, mathematically, that dictated that retirement age was 70, then so be it. People would just have to deal with cold hard facts, which is never a political winner.

The hardships that SS is facing have more to do with the mathematics of the boomer generation. For a long time boomers, making up the bulk of the work force, dwarfed the number of SS recipients. now that boomers are retiring that bill is coming due.

I'm all for upping the SS eligibility age and even means testing it. But it's not the same thing as a Ponzi scheme. 

You literally went through exactly why it is a Ponzi scheme and ways to fix it. But as currently constructed it is a Ponzi scheme.

Just now, rambo said:

Sound just like a failing ponzi scheme to me.

No. The reality is that the boomers would have had to be told they'd need to wait longer to receive benefits because there aren't enough workers.

But every attempt to up the eligibility age has been beaten up by - primarily - the left. Democrats are quite wrong in a lot of ways on SS. 

Just now, vikas83 said:

You literally went through exactly why it is a Ponzi scheme and ways to fix it. But as currently constructed it is a Ponzi scheme.

No, because in a Ponzi scheme the number of recipients always grows. 

SS recipients die. 

Just now, JohnSnowsHair said:

No. The reality is that the boomers would have had to be told they'd need to wait longer to receive benefits because there aren't enough workers.

But every attempt to up the eligibility age has been beaten up by - primarily - the left. Democrats are quite wrong in a lot of ways on SS. 

Conclusion?

As currently constructed it is a Ponzi scheme because there aren't enough new investors to cover redemptions, causing it to collapse on itself.

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

Conclusion?

As currently constructed it is a Ponzi scheme because there aren't enough new investors to cover redemptions, causing it to collapse on itself.

Or move the age back to the point where most participants will be dead before collecting.

14 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Conclusion?

As currently constructed it is a Ponzi scheme because there aren't enough new investors to cover redemptions, causing it to collapse on itself.

It wouldn't collapse. Payouts would just be much smaller.

A Ponzi scheme fails because at some point - 3-4 levels deep - there isn't enough of the pie to share with all the levels of "profit sharing" that are promised to make their way back up the chain to the top. By then the person/people at the top, who knew all along that this would collapse, make a hasty exit and disappear. 

There aren't levels in SS. There is no group at the top knowingly engaging in defrauding new investors being lured in. You either are part of the group paying in, or part of the group receiving benefits. If you make the receiving group too big, yeah it's going to fail. But it fails because the plan design got out of whack, not because it fits with the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

I know that it's a very easy rhetorical way to attack SS, but projecting it as a Ponzi scheme has always been off the mark to me.

Take a hypothetical. You have a village made up of a tribe back thousands of years ago, and there's a handful of elderly who used to be the tribe's hunters and gatherers but no longer can operate in that capacity. The village doesn't cast them out, but takes care of them - knowing that they only have limited time left. The tribe operates this way for many generations, and it becomes their custom. Is this a Ponzi scheme that will inevitably collapse? No.. though there may be periods where due to not enough baby making and too many "boomers" that the elder generation needs to take a pay cut and do their hunting and gathering longer than other generations. 

That's pretty much what SS does, except with dollars.

43 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

It wouldn't collapse. Payouts would just be much smaller.

A Ponzi scheme fails because at some point - 3-4 levels deep - there isn't enough of the pie to share with all the levels of "profit sharing" that are promised to make their way back up the chain to the top. By then the person/people at the top, who knew all along that this would collapse, make a hasty exit and disappear. 

There aren't levels in SS. There is no group at the top knowingly engaging in defrauding new investors being lured in. You either are part of the group paying in, or part of the group receiving benefits. If you make the receiving group too big, yeah it's going to fail. But it fails because the plan design got out of whack, not because it fits with the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

I know that it's a very easy rhetorical way to attack SS, but projecting it as a Ponzi scheme has always been off the mark to me.

Take a hypothetical. You have a village made up of a tribe back thousands of years ago, and there's a handful of elderly who used to be the tribe's hunters and gatherers but no longer can operate in that capacity. The village doesn't cast them out, but takes care of them - knowing that they only have limited time left. The tribe operates this way for many generations, and it becomes their custom. Is this a Ponzi scheme that will inevitably collapse? No.. though there may be periods where due to not enough baby making and too many "boomers" that the elder generation needs to take a pay cut and do their hunting and gathering longer than other generations. 

That's pretty much what SS does, except with dollars.

So your basic argument is that it isn't a Ponzi scheme because without modification the payouts would be reduced to the amount of money coming in when the trust fund is exhausted? I mean, that's a cute way to try and not call it a Ponzi scheme. I'll give you that it is a modified Ponzi scheme because it has the ability to screw retirees at some point by reducing benefits -- of course, no one expects this to actually happen because it would cause chaos. 

The reason it is a Ponzi scheme is because we all accept that there will never be a reduction in benefits to match inflows -- there is zero political will for this.

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

1. They stole the money years ago and replaced it with non-transferrable IOUs

2. There aren't enough workers to support the number of retirees anymore

Defined Benefit Plans are by definition unsustainable, but at least they try and take assets to invest for future payments. Social Security is the literal definition of a Ponzi scheme as new investors pay out redemptions to prior investors. It's Madoff on a much, much, much larger scale.

So our only solution is another COVID to keep killing them off? 

1 minute ago, DaEagles4Life said:

So our only solution is another COVID to keep killing them off? 

I'd just terminate the program, but that isn't realistic. 

What we need to do is:

1. Raise the retirement age significantly: when the program was started, the life expectancy for men was 58 and 62 for women. So a 65 retirement age meant more than half the people never saw it. Now life expectancy is almost 79 years. So we need to raise the retirement age to 75+ immediately, and have it move up towards 80. 

2. Means test it: this is terrible for me, but it is just the reality. Reduce payments for those that don't need it. I find this morally reprehensible, but it is the only way to save the program and maybe get Democrats to agree to #1. 

3 (Maybe). Allow people to opt out: I would do this in a heartbeat. Happy to keep my money and plan for my own retirement. Clearly there would be adverse selection here, mitigated by the income cap on SS taxes.

1 hour ago, DaEagles4Life said:

So our only solution is another COVID to keep killing them off? 

maybe that's what cuomo was doing in NY ?

22 hours ago, rambo said:

Sounds just like a failing ponzi scheme to me.

Well it's been around since 1935 and hasn't failed yet. 

for it to be a Ponzi scheme, there has to be an element of fraud. SS is transparent about how it operates.

people at the "top" of the pyramid also have to be receiving funds continuously from "new investors", but with SS they don't because they die. 

the only element of being a Ponzi scheme that fits is that it's transferring payments from current contributors to past contributors. but it's missing the critical elements of fraud, coupled with the limited pool of SS recipients (as people die) make theses Ponzi scheme comparisons off the mark to me.

whatever 🤷‍♂️

4 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

the cost of the Turnpike is indeed absurd. I appreciate that it's a fairly well maintained road by Pennsylvania standards, but it's still ridiculous that when I go to the office (which I have not in a year) it costs me like $3 each way to travel 13 miles. and that's with the reduced fair from EZ-Pass; it'd be $6 each way by license plate.

22 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

the cost of the Turnpike is indeed absurd. I appreciate that it's a fairly well maintained road by Pennsylvania standards, but it's still ridiculous that when I go to the office (which I have not in a year) it costs me like $3 each way to travel 13 miles. and that's with the reduced fair from EZ-Pass; it'd be $6 each way by license plate.

The amount of construction they've done on the road over the past 5-10 years is insane.

1 minute ago, rambo said:

The amount of construction they've done on the road over the past 5-10 years is insane.

And yet if I drive from 611 to Valley Forge I'm still in stop and go traffic for the bulk of the time. But at least the potholes are covered up quickly.

I'd like to see some kind of expansion to the number of lanes there. Or maybe do something I've seen elsewhere where there's a lane in the middle that switches from eastbound to westbound depending on traffic - so you don't need to add 1-2 lanes on each side, just one or two in the middle and adjust accordingly. that's probably a bit much, but I end up taking back roads half the time because of congestion - or just not going in to the office until after 9am.

35 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

The one nice thing about Covid. It's probably save me a few thousand in tolls at this point.