posted
Doesn't welfare usually protect mothers in this category? Also, doesn't the new health care law at least make it illegal for companies to deny health insurance to children with pre-exisiting conditions?
Also, the recent federal defunding of Planned Parenthood's non-abortion related services eliminates a large source of affordable contraception and gynecological care for the people most likely to be unable to provide for children. I read somewhere that for every dollar spent on such services.
quote:Also, doesn't the new health care law at least makes is illegal for companies to deny health insurance to children with pre-exisiting conditions?
And as a result, insurance companies in 23 states have dropped children-only health care policies. Including my friend's state, and when they applied for a family policy which accepted them the year before when they just wanted the parents, magically the parents didn't qualify this year, even though nothing about them had changed. They do have a daughter with special needs, however. Oh no, she wasn't denied insurance - it was the parents. And they don't offer children-only policies.
My point is that the services and programs for children are piece meal, messy, full of holes, and cut before the programs for old people, who should have saved. Frak that. Switch the priorities.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:The debt, including that owed to the "trust fund" will be inflated away.
Debt owed to others is reduced by inflation, but since the only purpose of the trust fund debt is to account for previous surpluses of a particular tax in the future for a particular liability, all that matters is the size of the liability. The federal gov't is on the hook for the amount of the liability no matter what the size of the trust fund is. Inflation does absolutely nothing. The only thing that matters is the size of the liability (which is scaled with inflation, absent future adjustments).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Do you have an argument for not doing so that doesn't rely on "We've always had a Postal Service"?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
If rural communities want packages delivered to them, why should they not pay the real costs of those deliveries? As for legal papers, is there a particular reason the delivery has to be done by a government agency? And if that's really your reason for keeping the USPS around, why not just establish a courier service for that particular purpose? There is surely no need for the vast structure of the postal service just to deliver summonses and whatnot.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
Answer my points, rather than insulting me. And I meant what I said - this discussion isn't worth to me the bother of research.
It's very difficult to answer points when the data that allegedly supports these points is absent. Provide me with the links so I can address your points. How many times do I have to ask.
quote:If they were real bonds, then they would be transferable - that's the point of bonds.
Why do you think the point of bonds is to be transferrable? According to every investment guide I've ever seen, the point of bonds is to provide a high security investment with a guaranteed rate of return. There are many different types of bonds that have restrictions on their sale and transfer. The bonds held by the Social Security Trust are not unique in being non-transferrable.
quote:I've stated that all the bonds are theatre - pointing out the details of the theatre production isn't convincing.
Whenever you buy any type of bond, whether its a savings bond at a bank, a municipal utility, a corporation or the US government -- the issue of the bond immediately spends the money on something else. This is always the case. That's how bonds work. It bares little to no relevance on whether the bond has real value.
quote:I'll be convinced the "SS Bucks" have redeemable value when...they can be redeemed, for their face value. Until then, they are theatre. But none of that even matters - that's not the point of the present dillema.
1. The US government is legally bound to redeem those Social Security Bonds as soon as they are needed to make Social Security payments. That can't be changed by executive order or administrative shuffling. A law would have to be passed through both laws of congress and signed by the President to devalue or annul the debt owed to social security. Doing that would be catastrophic for the US economy and world so I can't imagine the government ever making such a move. The medicare trust fund is held in exactly the same type of bonds and the government has been "redeeming" Medicare Trust Funds nearly every year since 1995. Do you accept that the Medicare Trust Funds have real value since they have in fact been redeemed? They are exactly the same kind of bond held by Social Security.
And this is only irrelevant to the current dilemma if you don't think we the US people have a moral obligation to keep the agreements we have made with our own workers and senior citizens. It's only irrelevant if you integrity, paying your bills, and filling the obligations you have made are unimportant.
quote:And whether they are or not, the situation remains the same: from now on, Social Security is not self sustaining and must be paid, in a growing porportion, from the general fund. Social Security is a line item in the federal budget.
Whether or not Social Security is now or will be self sustaining in the future is utterly dependent on the question of the trust fund. It was recognized back in 1980 that Social Security would no longer be self sustaining when the baby boomers began to retire. To fix that problem, social security taxes were increased creating a surplus which, by law, would be saved in government bonds to make up the future shortfall. We planned ahead for this moment, but now that the bill is coming do we don't want to pay it. The fact that the trust fund isn't a big pile of cash stowed somewhere, doesn't make it pretend money any more than the money in my bank account is pretend. The US government has numerous options for paying off the debt it owes to Social Security. It can sell bonds to private investors. It can raise taxes or it can cut other programs. The US government is not facing bankruptcy if it has to gradually pay down the Social Security Trust to meet the demand for which it was created.
What would you think of a person who refused to pay their unsecured debts even though they had multiple options for doing so? I'd think they were lying cheating scum. As an American citizen, I expect the government to represent me -- not lying cheating scum.
The government isn't "them", its "us:. It represents "us". What it does, we do. We the American people made a compact with US workers that the surplus social security taxes they were paying would be held in a trust for when they retired. Now the that time has come. If we have any ounce of integrity we will not forget the obligation we have to the payers of the FICA tax. It's a legal obligation but its also a moral one. It might be possible to change the law, but every moral person should oppose it.
quote:The Supreme Court has found there is no legal claim on SS benefits.
I've asked for a source for this before, I will ask again. In my search, I found a case where the Supreme Court ruled that an individual had no legal claim to Social Security. (The particular case dealt with an immigrant who was deported for being a member of the communist party during the McCarthy era and sued to receive the Social Security he would have received had he remained a US resident.) This case has absolutely no relevance to the question of whether the American people (as a whole as opposed to individual Americans) have a legal claim on Social Security. Under existing law, we clearly do. Under existing law, the moneys paid to Social Security must be used to pay Social Security Benefits and the other branches of the Government which have borrowed from the Social Security Trust are legally bound to repay that money. That law could be changed. Changing it would be immoral, irresponsible and dishonorable.
quote:That means it gets the same scrutiny as every other government program.
Only if you don't think that one has a moral obligation to pay ones debts. The US government owes retirees 2.4 trillion dollars. If treating social security like every other program means forgetting that -- them NO. No honorable person would treat it like programs that have not generated a surplus specifically earmarked for specific task.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: What would be the difference between the courier service and a (right-sized) postal service?
It would not do a fixed route; rather than a van-full of letters and whatnot being carted around every day, it would do point-to-point deliveries on a motorbike. Further, it would only accept legal notices.
Note that I am not advocating such a thing. I'm saying that, if the reason we need a postal service is to deliver legal papers, why have we got all this paraphernalia of mailboxes on every street corner and daily deliveries of junk mail to every neighbourhood? Why not optimise for the thing you (meaning in this case Genuine) say we need it for? Conversely, if such an optimisation would be a bad thing, then why should I take seriously the argument that this is why we need the service?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: The US government is legally bound to redeem those Social Security Bonds as soon as they are needed to make Social Security payments.
Right, this is fine, but it does not address the underlying point that this money does not exist in a bank account somewhere. It is a legal obligation of the US government whic, at the moment, has no money for it. When the first of those bonds is due, that is to say, the very day that SS outgo is greater than income, the government will have to either borrow or tax, or default. Thus the argument that the 'Trust Fund' shows the solidity of SS is invalid. The trust fund is only as good as the ability of USG to find money to pay off its IOUs. If you want to argue that SS is solvent, show where USG gets the money to pay its IOUs; not that SS has a bunch of IOUs. A bond is only worth as much as the solvency of its issuer.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
In the long run, putting land, even remote land, to productive use has a net benefit. Don't ask me for a statistic -- but I suspect that it's a small price to pay. Question: do people in rural communities get junk mail?
Legal service?
Side note: You usually can't serve an individual person with a summons via the mail anyway. Unless the person is a business entity (corp, LLC, LLP, etc.) or a government entity or something. But for every document subsequent to the summons . . .
Why? I can't say why, historically. But what if you want to sue the private courier in your region? What if an unrepresented party doesn't have access to fax or a computer? A federally-operated system of delivery is about as fair a system as we can get.
Posts: 158 | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Right, this is fine, but it does not address the underlying point that this money does not exist in a bank account somewhere.
How would it be any different if the money were in a bank account somewhere? Banks don't just keep money in a vault. If it had been placed in a bank account, the bank would have lent or invested it somewhere. If the borrowers defaulted or the investments tanked, we could not redeem the money from the account.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Without taking a side, I'd like to state that I've learned a lot by following the argument(s) in this thread, or at least I think I have.
From a meta perspective, I'm also interested in the fact that this argument has no apparent consensus, or even clearly delineated sides. I guess that demonstrates just how fuzzy this issue is.
Katie, I do admit that I am a little confused by your refusal to provide links validating your claims, as you've demanded sources from an opponent in a similar way in a recent thread, and are clearly invested in the discussion. Maybe we can convince you to do some research for us pro bono ?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: My point is that the services and programs for children are piece meal, messy, full of holes, and cut before the programs for old people, who should have saved. Frak that. Switch the priorities.
I don't know about switching the priorities, but I basically agree. More important that we have govt-provided coverage for children.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
X, it's easy. Becuase that would be work, and this is recreation. It's not worth it, and I don't have the slightest doubt that I could provide lists of links and Rabbit would simply dismiss everything that doesn't already fit in her world view.
It's a collasal waste of time. I read a lot of blogs and three or four economic wonky blogs specifically, so there is a huge number of places it could be. Looking up the links simply isn't worth the trouble.
Especially since what Rabbit is disputing isn't even essential to the argument - where the bonds are fake or not (they are), the money coming forward must come from the General Fund, and if you make old people programs sacrosanct, then you rob children to do it. That's foul.
The Supreme Court has determined that Social Security is not guaranteed. There is less obligation to pay social security than there is to pay public employee pensions. It simply isn't a pension plan, and it never was.
*shrug* I think someone who cares enough to do research on this topic because of this discussion (which is so not me) would research that themselves. Unless, of course, you think I am lying through my teeth, which Rabbit does, but her opinion isn't worth much to me. There just needed to be some correction to the false premises of this rant.
Leaving Social Security as it is and robbing children of their presents and their futures is reprehensible. Baby Boomers didn't save - they could vote, and they let this situation happen. Four times the percentage of children live in poverty than seniors. The unemployment rate of 16-24 is over 20%. The bursting of the housing bubble has cratered the ability of first-time homeowners to build wealth. And while every single person over 65 in this country has access to health care, the programs for children are spotty, messy, laborious, and substandard.
Holding Social Security sacrosant is flat out stealing from children. It's wrong. I am GLAD that those entitlements are on the table now, because now there can be a readjusting of priorities.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:If you want to argue that SS is solvent, show where USG gets the money to pay its IOUs; not that SS has a bunch of IOUs. A bond is only worth as much as the solvency of its issuer.
I've done it already, but let me repeat it. The US government gets money to pay its IOUs through taxes and by selling government bonds. One year US government bonds are currently selling with an interest rate of 0.25% -- suggesting that there is no shortage of people willing to invest in the US government. The US government can easily gradually pay down the Social Security Trust Fund (and gradually pay down is what is required) by switching publicly financed debt to privately financed debt.
This will not lead to any net change in the national debt, though its likely that over time it will lead to higher interest rates. But be I wouldn't complain to loudly about that. What it suggests is that if it were not for the SS and the other trust funds, we would have been paying higher interests rates all along.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The bonds in the SS fund are NOT the US Government bonds issued to the general public that are redeemable for their face value.
The are "special" bonds and have no redeemable value on the open market.
That makes them just funny money. What you want to do is to borrow real money to redeem them - which means it is coming out of the General Fund. That means Social Security is broke. Which means that the premise of this rant is wrong.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
For years - decades - the burden has been pushed on to the next generation. Now it is coming due, and the next generation is saying "No". I actually don't have a problem with that.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: [QB] X, it's easy. Becuase that would be work, and this is recreation. It's not worth it, and I don't have the slightest doubt that I could provide lists of links and Rabbit would simply dismiss everything that doesn't already fit in her world view.
Kat, You have absolutely no right to insult me based on your forecasts of how I would respond if you were to something you have never done. If you aren't willing to do the work needed to back up the claims you make -- stick to fluff threads for your recreation and leave the serious discussions to those of us who care about truth and honest.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Kat, I can handle challenges to my rants. I can't handle you. You have a smug, nasty condescending way of responding to me and others on this board that makes me want to fight you to the pain. You are genuinely unpleasant poster. I really can't abide interacting with you any more. If I have to leave the community to avoid it, then I guess I will.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am not interested in insults and threats and personal drama - only in correcting false premises.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
Bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government are real money whether or not they're tradable. The question is whether USG has pledged its faith and credit too widely, and still has the ability to redeem all its promises.
quote:The US government gets money to pay its IOUs through taxes and by selling government bonds.
Right, agreed. Since selling bonds is effectively just putting off the taxation, this comes down to "higher taxes", either in 2017 or (if USG sells 20-year bonds) 2037, or sometime between the two. Right? So in the end, SS is solvent if, and only if, USG has the will and ability to pass higher taxes. By all means argue that it does; I'm not contesting that point. But to say that this means SS is solvent in itself is, IMO, a bait and switch. It's distracting from the actual problem people have with SS, which is that either USG reforms it, or taxes go up, in spite of the higher taxes instituted in the eighties which were intended to avoid precisely that problem.
quote:How would it be any different if the money were in a bank account somewhere? Banks don't just keep money in a vault. If it had been placed in a bank account, the bank would have lent or invested it somewhere.
The difference is that phrase, "lent or invested". The bank would have exchanged the money for assets. Possibly not liquid assets, and some of its investments would have lost money (although if it lost money on average, it would go bankrupt); but it would be able to show, for every dollar, "Yep, we spent that dollar on this asset, and we made so-and-so much interest, and now we have a dollar and X cents if we liquidate at market prices". USG, however, has spent the money on consumption. It can show, for every dollar, "We spent that dollar on food stamps for this guy, a Tomahawk missile that we shot at Gaddafi, and spare parts for this peachy-keen jet fighter, and now we have - well, nothing except our ability to tax."
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rabbit, you don't have to leave the community (and I hope you don't); you just have to ignore kat. Really. It isn't difficult. Nothing anyone does will change her behaviour but nothing says you have to respond to her.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Lots of people are ignorable. There are some usernames that instantly make my eyes glaze over because nothing they say betrays the slightest sign of intelligent life.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Or let me put it differently. Suppose that SS taxes had not been increased in the eighties, but that the 'Trust Fund' had existed just the same; that is, Congress passed a law saying the Treasury had to give SS so many bonds at such a rate of interest. The only difference is that people would not have been paying the extra SS taxes in the eighties and nineties, right? There would still have to be a tax hike in 2017, or whenever it is. So what was the purpose of the extra SS taxes? Tomahawk missiles, apparently. If the money had been lent to banks which would have invested it in interest-generating products, fine. But it has been lent against the future taxation power of USG, and that is really very different.
Similarly, what would have happened if there had been neither an SS tax increase nor a trust fund established? People would have paid less taxes through the eighties and nineties, and we'd still need a tax hike in 2017. So the point is that the only thing those eighties taxes accomplished was to buy extra Tomahawk missiles and food stamps, or whatever it is USG has been spending money on. The 2017 tax hike that it was supposed to avoid has not been avoided. Arguing that SS is 'solvent' is just playing with words in the face of this fact; it ignores what people mean by 'solvent' when speaking of government programs, namely "won't require me to pay more taxes". Especially when they've already been paying extra taxes to avoid precisely that problem. This is the source of the rage; pointing to a pile of IOUs and saying "We have the power to increase taxes to pay these off" is just compeltely missing the point.
Kat, you are actually correct, but you are arguing in a very unpleasant manner. If you're really uninterested in this debate, could you please go elsewhere? You're adding heat but no light.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
In 1982, it was the same situation that is happening now: receipts were going to be lower than payouts. As a result, taxes were raised and benefits were lowered. It's happened before, and I have no doubt that it can and will happen again. It should.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Lots of people are ignorable. There are some usernames that instantly make my eyes glaze over because nothing they say betrays the slightest sign of intelligent life.
You're being a little too hard on yourself.
Posts: 1794 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Katharina, you should bow out of this debate if you're going to continue acting like you usually do.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: One year US government bonds are currently selling with an interest rate of 0.25% -- suggesting that there is no shortage of people willing to invest in the US government.
I wouldn't put much stock in that.
The biggest holder of US government bonds would be the government itself. That shouldn't give much confidence, that would be like asking a shady guy in an alleyway how much he trusts himself. That would be followed by the Chinese who need it to depress the exchange rate and are simply hoping they won't be screwed too much when it comes crashing down*. Between them and other foreign currency reserves around the world, there's not a lot of "people" investing in the US government.
*
quote: Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said after a speech in New York that China would continue to buy Treasuries in spite of its misgivings about US finances. ... Mr Luo, whose English tends toward the colloquial, added: “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”
posted
Rabbit, KoM, Dobbie, Samp, and Kate. Aw, the usual suspects. That also officially makes it a dogpile. I know I'm fascinating, as always, but none of you are worth fighting with. Go back to our public debt disaster.
-------------------
So forget the funky accounting to pretends one part of the Fed can be in debt to another part of the Fed and credit ratings care (they don't).
In the future, there are huge populations that will expect government money, and there are also populations of citizens who can't take of themselves who need it. Why is it that seniors are guaranteed a minimum life, while children are not? The safety net for kids is full of holes. I mean, philosophically, if you believe that society has an obligation to take care of those who can't take care of themselves, why aren't children at the front of that line?
More specifically, why on earth doesn't Medicare cover children?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I am not interested in insults and threats and personal drama - only in correcting false premises.
If you were interested in correcting false premises, you would provide data rather than conjecture and you would respond to the facts presented by others. If you weren't interested in insults, you wouldn't make so many of them. If you weren't interested in drama, you'd be an entirely different human being.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: Rabbit, KoM, Dobbie, Samp, and Kate. Aw, the usual suspects. That also officially makes it a dogpile. I know I'm fascinating, as always, but none of you are worth fighting with.
The reasons you are fascinating usually have to do with how pathologically incapable you are of understanding what's wrong with the way you act. If none of them are worth fighting with, you would think you would be able to restrain yourself from fighting and belittling constantly. Even just this once, if even to prove you were even remotely in control of yourself.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
No one actually cares about the money talk anymore? They care more about me? How flattering, and pointless. The fascination isn't returned. Go back to the serious discussion of whether something can actually have monetary value if no one is allowed to buy it. "Priceless" really isn't the description you want of the fund that is supposed to pay for your retirement.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Rabbit, really, just stop. It could be an interesting discussion. Any thoughts on lifting the cap?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
Anyway, the reason we shouldn't heap entitlements on the children is the fact that the entitlements we've already given them have created a society where no one needs to take care of their family anymore. Who asks "But who will take care of me and my baby?" No one because the answer is obvious. The government.
So poor kids screw around, get pregnant, don't get married and raise another generation to live off the dole.
As for old people, they should have spent their youth either raising kids to take care of them or socking it away in savings. Instead taxes (including payroll taxes) looted them dry. Or they pissed it away on cars and big screen tvs, which is their own damn fault. Either way I don't feel obligated to take care of them either.
People who DO feel such an obligation to take care of their fellow man should get together and form a charity rather than using the force of law to thrust their own morality on to others. Yes I know, those laws have been around for generations now. Doesn't mean they're a good idea.
Not that it matters. I never change any minds here...
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: One year US government bonds are currently selling with an interest rate of 0.25% -- suggesting that there is no shortage of people willing to invest in the US government.
I wouldn't put much stock in that.
The biggest holder of US government bonds would be the government itself. That shouldn't give much confidence, that would be like asking a shady guy in an alleyway how much he trusts himself. That would be followed by the Chinese who need it to depress the exchange rate and are simply hoping they won't be screwed too much when it comes crashing down*. Between them and other foreign currency reserves around the world, there's not a lot of "people" investing in the US government.
The interest rates on government bonds aren't determined by who holds the most. They are determined by who is currently trading the most. The interest rates on the publicly held debt are locked to market rates but since they aren't traded on the market, the publicly held debt can't directly influence the market value. It does however have an indirect effect on the market value since it reduces the total amount of bonds issued on the private market.
But all that is virtually irrelevant to my point. If the US needs to sell more bonds to private holders to gradually pay off the bonds to Social Security -- all they need to do is set the interest rate high enough to attract the needed investors. Right now, the privately held debt is growing rapidly and interests rates are still at rock bottom. There is no reason to believe that the US government couldn't easily the money needed to meet its commitments to Social Security without having to offer enormous interest rates.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Anyway, the reason we shouldn't heap entitlements on the children is the fact that the entitlements we've already given them have created a society where no one needs to take care of their family anymore. Who asks "But who will take care of me and my baby?" No one because the answer is obvious. The government.
So poor kids screw around, get pregnant, don't get married and raise another generation to live off the dole.
I love this conceptualization because it's not really what happens. Countries with serious doles don't have an explosive problem with unleveled rates of poor kids acting like libertarian-conceptualized mass unproductives bringing the whole economy down.
If you have any sort of statistical data stating otherwise, now's the time to bring it up for review.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The interest rates on government bonds aren't determined by who holds the most. They are determined by who is currently trading the most.
This is essentially the same thing while China runs its trade surplus and the US government is playing games with the Fed.
quote: There is no reason to believe that the US government couldn't easily the money needed to meet its commitments to Social Security without having to offer enormous interest rates.
Of course there is. Without Chinese purchases of treasury bonds, interest rates would spike. That is why Geithner was sent to Beijing in 2009 to encourage the Chinese to continue buying bonds and why Clinton says in Wikileaks that America simply cannot get tough with its banker (China).
At one point, before the housing bubble, that spike would have been a good thing since it would slowed the bubble down. But now, with the US running trillion dollar deficits, I find it doubtful.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ok, can we just stop responding to katharina? This is actually rather an interesting discussion; she isn't.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You're less cynical than I am, fugu; for my part, I strongly suspect that because the monies for Social Security are entirely virtual, the government will simply decide one day that they don't exist and aren't owed.
I want to know when this will happen. Am I a rare person to think that even I am going to get social security when I retire?
Or maybe it won't be social security and will have a different name, but I still think I get money back when I am old, one way or another, unless we have an apocalyptic economic event.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Stats on this are really hard to find... But if you google up "teen pregnancy" You'll find that, indeed, teen pregnancy is tied to poverty. I'm sure you can come up with a lot of reasons for that, but really, if we, as a society, wasn't taking care of them, what would happen? Would there be social pressure for the fathers to step up and take care of their child? Do you really think they'd just starve? Or do you think the extended families of the parties involved would help them make it work?
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, and while we're at it, please produce evidence that societies with a real dole system don't have this problem because that's not what my, brief, research says.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
Teen pregnancy is less of a problem in Canada (or anywhere else it looks like) and it would be hard to argue that the US has a superior "dole" system in that regard.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
?
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'll send you my blog.
