Originally Posted by TheAngryPostman
Most of the taxes paid in this country are from companies. They bear the hugest cost.
Do you honestly think that all the money that you paid for in Social Security is just sitting there waiting for you? No! It has already been spent by the Fed. otherwise you would be able to withdraw all you put in at once!
Here's some quick math that I thought of that pisses me off... Your take-home pay is decreased more than 12% due to your "contributions" to the social security system. That money of course, like any other ponzi scheme, is immediately sent from the Treasury to the mailbox of some random old person. It seems like a logical system to politicians, but the reason it's called a ponzi scheme is because current investors, who have an effective basis of $0, are kept afloat by new investors. When the new investors dry up, the current investors' bases of $0 are fully realized, and the system collapses. Madoff went to jail for this EXACT same thing, and the very politicians who favor expanding and taxing even more the social security contributions of individuals, are the same ones who were lambasting Madoff for running the very same operation they are! Hypocrites! Idiots!
The average American takes home a little over $40,000 per year. Without a Social Security tax, our incomes would be closer to $45,000. If we all used that extra $5,000 to invest in our Roth IRAs every year from our 20s onward, we could retire at 65-70 as MULTI-MILLIONAIRES. Instead... we give that $5,000 to the federal government, which, of course, immediately disappears. But when we reach age for withdrawal, the average American receives $1,153 per month from Social Security. $13,836 per year. Assuming we live a very liberally estimated 25 years from the day we withdrawal benefits, that is a total of $345,900 nominal dollars over 25 years. Annual cost of living adjustments are made to the benefits, but the real purchasing power of those checks will remain about equivalent to what $345,900 would buy today.
On the flipside, those of us who opted to manage our own retirement, would wisely begin withdrawing (tax free, of course) funds from our Roth IRAs as soon as we hit 59.5 years old, ratably with the timing of the market at that time, and placing the withdrawals in safer investments like money markets, CDs, and low yield bonds. That way when we reach 65 or 70, or whatever age we decide we want to cruise around the world, we will have several hundred thousand dollars more than the social security folks. Oh, and the best part? We won't be paying income taxes on the adjusted principle of our withdrawals, the social security folks will be.
That being said, is our method of retirement a little riskier than social security which is "backed by the full faith and credit of the US government?" Yes it is, but high risk, high reward. And it's worth it to me to have hundreds of thousands, possibly millions more disposable dollars at retirement. Some people may not be willing to go through with that, and may opt for something safe and low yield like social security, and that's fine. If we want to give them that option (rather than just allow individuals to invest that same money in equally safe investments via the private sector...), they can have that opportunity, but my gripe is, why do we all have to be forced to pay for it!? It all boils down to my gripe with the public option. If we want to be little leftists and have a public option, OK, but why will we all be forced to pay for it!?
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