4 ms·

Hardly just a California thing; see Social Security. (Which is actually quite easily fixable, if we had the political will). But also posted today was an articl

by rconti 8y ago

Hardly just a California thing; see Social Security. (Which is actually quite easily fixable, if we had the political will). But also posted today was an article about surging bankruptcy filings among the very group (baby boomers) that benefited MOST from a successful economy. Subsequent generations are being saddled with their excesses, and yet we still have a looming crisis.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> But also posted today was an article about surging bankruptcy filings among the very group (baby boomers) that benefited MOST from a successful economy. The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents.
- antisthenes 8y ago
  > The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. They were just the right age for reaping all the benefits from rising land and real estate prices, despite the real wage flat-lining at the end of 1970s Not to mention that advancement and career progression were far more expedient in their day, allowing them to reap benefits earlier in their life than millenials today, who might still be working entry level jobs by their 30s. > The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents. And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now? By that standard, Millennials are the eventual beneficiaries, too.
FPGAhacker 8y ago
I'm afraid this will sound like a taunt, but I don't mean it to be. What is the easy fix, given political will, for social security?
- rconti 8y ago
  It's difficult to separate political fact from fiction. But nearest I can tell, the "insolvency crisis" of Social Security (where it's said to be trillions of dollars in the red) is generally a fiction; we can wish the President and Congress hadn't raided the trust fund in the 80s, but it seems generally accepted that a few tweaks would immediately fix it. Considering how easily we fund a war here, a tax cut there, Social Security could be made self-sustaining again fairly easily. We could remove the cap on taxed income while either NOT removing the cap on benefits to high earners (or give them increasing benefits but not in relationship to how much additional tax they're paying). We could adjust the retirement age (say, indexed for lifespan changes to provide some midpoint/average number of 'working years'). That's all without even changing the tax rate, which of course is always another option. Ultimately, just by basic logic alone, there's no reason we can't fund X amount of benefits with Y amount of receipts by setting the numbers properly -- UNLESS AND UNTIL we have a massive greying crisis like Japan has. https://www.quora.com/Has-the-U-S-Congress-really-borrowed-trillions-from-Social-Security-to-use-for-government-spending https://www.quora.com/Has-the-U-S-Congress-really-borrowed-t... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-fun-facts/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-fun-facts/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lets-debunk-this-social-security-myth/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lets-debunk-this-social-securit...
  - lesserroneous 8y ago
    Your points are really interesting. I wonder how successful it would be to tax higher wage earners more. Many of the truly wealthy receive their money via means that are largely not subject to payroll taxes. Hence, we are only over taxing the upper "working class" who then might have less incentive for their high wages. Many higher wage earners and their employers are finding clever ways to avoid salary increases through the conferral of non-cash benefits. Though these are technically required to be taxed by reporting them to the IRS, I would bet many people aren't reporting the vacation their company sponsored or their gym memberships. Additionally, many contractors form corps and are using creative ways to reduce their payroll burden (among other tax relief.) The current wage cap is around $118k. What kind of cap do you think would be effective? Or are you saying we should remove caps?

by rconti 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

> But also posted today was an article about surging bankruptcy filings among the very group (baby boomers) that benefited MOST from a successful economy. The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents.

antisthenes 8y ago
> The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. They were just the right age for reaping all the benefits from rising land and real estate prices, despite the real wage flat-lining at the end of 1970s Not to mention that advancement and career progression were far more expedient in their day, allowing them to reap benefits earlier in their life than millenials today, who might still be working entry level jobs by their 30s. > The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents. And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now? By that standard, Millennials are the eventual beneficiaries, too.

FPGAhacker 8y ago

I'm afraid this will sound like a taunt, but I don't mean it to be. What is the easy fix, given political will, for social security?

rconti 8y ago
It's difficult to separate political fact from fiction. But nearest I can tell, the "insolvency crisis" of Social Security (where it's said to be trillions of dollars in the red) is generally a fiction; we can wish the President and Congress hadn't raided the trust fund in the 80s, but it seems generally accepted that a few tweaks would immediately fix it. Considering how easily we fund a war here, a tax cut there, Social Security could be made self-sustaining again fairly easily. We could remove the cap on taxed income while either NOT removing the cap on benefits to high earners (or give them increasing benefits but not in relationship to how much additional tax they're paying). We could adjust the retirement age (say, indexed for lifespan changes to provide some midpoint/average number of 'working years'). That's all without even changing the tax rate, which of course is always another option. Ultimately, just by basic logic alone, there's no reason we can't fund X amount of benefits with Y amount of receipts by setting the numbers properly -- UNLESS AND UNTIL we have a massive greying crisis like Japan has. https://www.quora.com/Has-the-U-S-Congress-really-borrowed-trillions-from-Social-Security-to-use-for-government-spending https://www.quora.com/Has-the-U-S-Congress-really-borrowed-t... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-fun-facts/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-fun-facts/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lets-debunk-this-social-security-myth/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lets-debunk-this-social-securit...
- lesserroneous 8y ago
  Your points are really interesting. I wonder how successful it would be to tax higher wage earners more. Many of the truly wealthy receive their money via means that are largely not subject to payroll taxes. Hence, we are only over taxing the upper "working class" who then might have less incentive for their high wages. Many higher wage earners and their employers are finding clever ways to avoid salary increases through the conferral of non-cash benefits. Though these are technically required to be taxed by reporting them to the IRS, I would bet many people aren't reporting the vacation their company sponsored or their gym memberships. Additionally, many contractors form corps and are using creative ways to reduce their payroll burden (among other tax relief.) The current wage cap is around $118k. What kind of cap do you think would be effective? Or are you saying we should remove caps?