Social Security as is does not help the economy and hardly even aids the government financial situation. The U.S. government should start a managed fund in the United States stock market that only invests in companies that employ and manufacture within the United States and have a long good standing and project to continue profitable business. Then all citizens must invest into this fund as a government sponsored patriot 401k fund. The investment would actually grow, help the U.S. economy and help eliminate generational poverty. Social security currently losses money and is largely not beneficial since it does not grow.
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I would only add end all federal pensions and have them in this program as well.
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Need to ensure the money is held in each citizen’s private account to ensure the government doesn’t spend it like they do today. Additionally, need to cap the tax rate and amount that goes into the program.
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+1, but Social security must be optional. The government has mo right to force any individual to “save for retirement”. Or save for the retirement of others. The money will run out soon, and younger generations who have been scammed into paying this will not benefit. The current birthrates are plummeting, and in a few decades, there will be as many seniors as working aged people.
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Harmonize Economics with Creative Currency Octaves: BetterToBest.wixsite.com/book/post/harmonize-economics-with-creative-currency-octaves
I can understand what you’re getting at, but this could also lead to a similar issue as with health insurance. It looks like a path that would require individual companies to set up a retirement “social security” while it would encourage people to stay with a company for a longer time, how could this be regulated (should)? Would McDonald’s have to offer the same as Tesla?
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This is an easy topic to jump on but not an easy one to resolve. For people who have paid into it for 40 or 50 years, it is wrong to take that funding away. The funding has to come from somewhere of course. I agree that something better needs to be put in place but it’s going to take some time and a lot of money to transition. I complained for 50 years that I would rather invest it myself and manage it myself, but I didn’t have a choice. It’s not fair for young people to be forced to contribute to a fund they will likely never see any benefit. I’d love to see a reasonable and well thought out plan for moving to something else. I guess we need to ask Elon to take a look at it. He could probably figure it out in 15 minutes.
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" For people who have paid into it for 40 or 50 years, it is wrong to take that funding away."
I got news for you, that funding was spent already.
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How about instead, we turn into an investment fund for our infrastructure? Everybody, including corporations, pay into it. We use it to directly invest in our infrastructure, and when we retire, we get a pension from this gigantic infrastructure project.
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No, if it paid for itself with dividends you wouldn’t need to force people into it.
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That’s not news. We know the government “borrowed” from those funds for decades. It doesn’t change the fact that a large number of those people depend on it just to eat. Which is why I say we need to come up with a way to cover that funding while transitioning to a new plan. As I said, it will be expensive.
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Participation should be optional. People should be able to participate in private 401k exclusively without penalty. All contributions to retirement accounts should not be capped.
Other policies such as repealing 16th amendment and no tax on capital gains essentially means there is no point in capping retirement account contributions.
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Obviously it gets phased out over time. The important point is to not victimize the next generation because of the victims of previous generations.
The only reason I believe it should be mandatory, is because it could truly help end generational poverty of many communities. I think a choice in how much you contribute should be available, but as long as someone is working it should be mandatory so everyone has some kind of retirement and is less of a burden on the rest of the economy and their own family.
Sounds great in theory, but how could this “401K” be protected? All investment programs are heavily dependent on the people managing them, whether those are investment firms or even ourselves. What if Sam Bankman-Fried (or the likes of him) had been in charge of this? Further, does the average American know enough about stock investing to effectively manage their own accounts, let alone a young adult who is able to choose whether or not to participate in the SS program?
I agree the current SS program is a hot mess and by the time we are old enough to receive it is a joke. Congress keeps giving themselves lifetime raises, while “the people” get screwed worse every day. And don’t even get me started on how badly we care for our vets (and I’m not even one).
We definitely need an overhaul, but the alternatives are risky. This is going to be a tricky one.
It would be a managed fund similar to the S&P 500 by use of a committee, not sure if the committee officials are elected through our delegates or not. It would not be individual stocks, so nothing for the individual to manage. It would not be something the government could just pull funds from because the funds would be used to buy stock in publicly traded American owned companies. They just act as a broker and manager of the fund. It would seem their may be a small tax involved as some sort of patriot fund management fee. Anything else would be better than social security, even eliminating it and distributing current funds, currently it just serves as an additional way the government can tax us that is branded differently.
If there is another idea on how to replace Social Security please follow up with the idea in the thread. My idea won’t be the only one and likely not the best alternative.
We’re all forced to pay into the Social Security system now - both every employee and their employer at the rate of 6.2% each, for a total of 12.4%. If that money was invested in fixed income securities or conservative stocks, we’d be much better off when it was time to retire. It would also reduce the need to save additional funds (i.e., 401K’s), thus freeing up more available cash for families, which would then further stimulate the economy. A true win-win all the way around.
- IF you had said Make SS Inheritable, or Transferable to Progeny or a Spouse, I could agree with you…
- You propose SS be used in a Gambling Establishment… Bad Idea…
- You seem to propose that Corporate Charters be Perpetual and Never Ending, and that’s part of how we got into this Mess in the First place, ALL Charters should have a Mortality Date, Safe is like 10 Years, then they can reapply, IF they even last that long…
- You Propose a ““MUST INVEST”” garbage, which we are currently experiencing with SS, that we didn’t want to invest in to begin with, another Bad Idea…
- You misplace the SS Losses, most of the ““Lost”” SS Money is in a pile of ““I-O-Us”” signed by Congress, they have been bilking SS for decades, and never paying it back, maybe we should collect it from their Personal Bank accounts…
- I have other problems with your proposal, but this should be enough to open your eyes…
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The government is trillions of dollars in debt. There’s no money anywhere. The government pays SS by borrowing from banks and the next generation(s) and by diluting the currency.