What the heck's going on with Lawrence O'Donnell re: Social Security (he's hosting Coundown).?

[BigBearJohn]

He's PROMOTING "fixing" Social Security. Seems (to me) that he's
pushing the idea that it's failing big time.

[RandomThoughts]

1. Sounded like a way to get a 'plug' in for Reagan.

Sounded odd, I agree.

[DJ13]

2. The fix is in, the foot soldiers have their marching orders

Assume the position.

[sandnsea]

3. After 2037, there will be a 25% shortfall

AFTER the trust fund is completely exhausted, there won't be enough coming in to cover benefits.

So forgetting all about the trust fund issue, what's your plan for AFTER 2037?

[BigBearJohn]

4. see below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9046734&mesg_id=9046734

[Cassandra]

6. The trust fund is supposed to cover the boomers.

When the trust fund is gone, most of the boomers will be, too. Then SS will go back to being a transfer system.

[sandnsea]

8. That will still be short

There are two separate issues.

One is the trust fund issue, which will begin being used at some point in the next five years or so. Actually there wasn't enough FICA income to cover benefits this year, $29 billion short. But that's a completely different issue then AFTER 2037 and the trust fund is completely gone.

[ipaint]

11. That was reported as a projection in march, as of today it hasn't happened. nt

[Enthusiast]

48. We should privatize?

Tell us what YOU would do.

[Romulox]

56. This "there's no problem as long as there's enough for ME!" attitude is disturbing

It's the crack in which the wedge will be forced, no doubt. You think young people will fight for your SS if you reveal this attitude of not caring for those who come after your generation? I don't.

[Cassandra]

78. What are you talking about?

The trust fund was an artificial construct set up by Greenspan and Reagan, probably to use in the general fund eventually. SS was designed to work without the trust fund, so we would be going back to normal.

[Hannah Bell]

29. that's a 25% shortfall from scheduled *future* benefits, not from today's benefits.

which are (scheduled to be) higher than today's benefits in real buying power.

my plan for 2037 is: do nothing. because it's a *projection* & it's 27 years away.

1. projections about the state of the economy 30 years out are worth about two cents.
2. five years ahead of time is plenty of time to "do something" if it needs to be done. one year is actually plenty of time.
3. "doing something" 30 years ahead of time based on a two-cent projection is IDIOCY. OR THEFT.

[Romulox]

57. Just like todays benefits have grown from the 50s. So let's make "no big deal" 25% cuts TODAY!

:hi:

[dkf]

5. When FDR selected 65 as the normal age to collect SS life expectancy was 58.

I was wondering if retirement was a modern idea and I guess I was right. Back in the days of FDR it was meant for people who had exceeded their life expectancy starting at 7 years. At a life expectancy of 78 years the current equivalent is retirement at 85.

[Cassandra]

7. They planned SS with longer lifetimes in mind.

Remember that the life expectancy average included babies who died in infancy. People who made it to old age had a longer life expectancy than 58. In other words, if you got past childhood, your life expectancy was close to ours.

[WCGreen]

40. Exactly....

[Blue_In_AK]

9. I don't think there's a direct and equal correlation.

85 seems a little extreme to me. Even in the '30s, I suspect that if you had already managed to live to 65 without succumbing to some disease, accident or war, you'd be likely to live a while longer. There are just many more older people now because we've become so expert at fending off death.

I took my social security early when I turned 62. I've worked hard all my life, and I feel like it's time to let the younger people have the jobs. With unemployment as high as it is now, where are all these 60-year-olds supposed to find work? It's ridiculous. I will only work for myself or volunteer from now on. I'm dropping out.

[dkf]

12. What kind of expectancy were they looking at then?

I think it is valuable to the discussion.

[Blue_In_AK]

14. All I can speak from is personal experience.

I'm 63 now. When I was little, in the early '50s, I had great uncles and aunts, several of them, who lived well into their 80s. My stepmother's grandfather lived to be 98 or something and was still living at home when he died. They all worked hard and were active until they passed on.

But it was also true that there were lots of deaths in the families from accidents and illnesses that might be mendable and curable today. There was still polio to contend with. My own nuclear family lost a mother and three children due to two infant deaths and two accidents. One of the infants was stillborn, but the other one might have been saved with today's technologies. My brother could not have been saved from his hunting accident, but my mother might have lived after the car crash.

[Hannah Bell]

30. LIFE EXPECTANCY AT AGE 65

1900: 11.9
1920: 12.5
1940: 12.8
1960: 14.4
1980: 16.5
1997: 17.7

Increase since 1940: 4.9 years

http://www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html

Increase in social security retirement age: 2 years

[DCBob]

32. According to those numbers we should raise retirement age another 2.9 years...

to match life expentancy.

[Hannah Bell]

33. who says we "should"? why "should" we?

[DCBob]

36. Perhaps to keep things in balance and help the fund stay solvent for future generations.

You have a problem with that?

[Hannah Bell]

37. yes, i have a problem with it, because it doesn't "keep things in balance" & it won't

"help the fund stay solvent for future generations".

[DCBob]

39. Yes it does.

[Hannah Bell]

43. no bob, it doesn't.

[Romulox]

58. The Baby Boomers are attempting to jettison the intergenerational compact aspect of SS, apparently.

It's hard to understand their argument, but it seems to boil down to a toxic mixture of "I've got mine," and "Because we can!".

[Hannah Bell]

61. lol. it's your generation who'll be paying the increased taxes on labor.

maybe we should let you get taken, since you're all in favor of it.

[Romulox]

75. Um, duh? Is it that hard for you to imagine a politics that's more than "GIMME GIMME GIMME!"?

:hi:

[Hannah Bell]

84. if you like being jacked, have at it. i prefer not to be robbed by the rich, like most normal

people.

[DCBob]

81. Im a "baby boomer" but I also care about future generations and the less fortunate..

As Democrats we should all be thinking that way.

[dkf]

50. That doesnt account for all those that paid into the system who died too early to collect.

[Hannah Bell]

62. it does "account for" them. that's why fica rates were lower then.

[AngryAmish]

60. Also more people died before age 65 in previous years

Look at the "expectation of life" table from those years and compare.

[Hannah Bell]

63. we already knew that. it's why fica rates were lower then.

you folks seem to think someone just woke up yesterday & discovered these facts.

newsflash: it's already covered.

[AngryAmish]

64. ?

[Hannah Bell]

66. ?

[iamtechus]

10. Don't be fooled by the "life expectancy" argument

This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago. What’s more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half. But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.

[eridani]

15. Life expectancy FROM BIRTH does not mean jackshit!

Life expectancy from 65 has increased by only a couple of years. Life expectancy from birth has been increased significantly only by reduction of infant mortality. Dead kids are irrelevant to Socisl Security, as they will never pay into it and never collect from it.

[Hannah Bell]

16. fail. it's about life expectancy over age 65, not from birth. White males in 1940 who

survived to age 60 could expect to live to age 75.

and life expectancy at birth in 1940 wasn't 58. It was 63. another fail.

It was 58 sometime in the 1920s.

do you just make stuff up?

[dkf]

22. Lawrence O'Donnell said it. Or someone on his show.

We were discussing him right?

[Hannah Bell]

25. lawrence o'donnell is a liar. do you believe everything you hear on tv?

most of it is lies.

[dkf]

27. I do generally trust O'Donell

[Hannah Bell]

28. too bad. he's lying.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html

http://www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html


and his little show was a commercial for social security cuts.

[dkf]

49. Truth-o-meter rates it "true" based on CDC numbers.

www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/08/glenn-beck/Glenn-Beck-Social-Security-life-expectancy/

[Hannah Bell]

65. you can look at cdc's own data & see it's false.

page 27, table 10, survivorship by age, race & sex, all races: number of survivors out of 100,000 born alive:

1929-1931: age 65 = 60,499 (60%)
1939-1941: age 65 = 68,701 (68%)

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_21.pdf

the "life expectancy" AT BIRTH of someone born 1929-1931 was 59. 10% of births died BEFORE REACHING AGE 20.

But MOST PEOPLE lived to 65 OR OLDER. (Table 11)

Glenn Beck & Politifact are liars; Politifact because they quote the "average life expectancy" statistic without noting that it's life expectancy from birth, or that the "average" person (MOST PEOPLE) lived to be 65 or older.

btw, social security didn't start paying out regular benefits UNTIL 1940.

By 1940, if you made it past your first birthday, average life expectancy was 67 years, & 68% of people lived to age 65 or older.

By 1949-1951 average life expectancy at birth was 68.07 for all. (Table 11)

[Hannah Bell]

85. you can tell the social security scaremongers are wrong because all their arguments incorporate

LIES.

If they were right, they wouldn't have to LIE.

CONSTANTLY, UNREMITTINGLY.

THAT GOES FOR THE BULLSHIT "POLITIFACT". With it's pretense of "correcting the record" it dispenses -- MORE LIES.

[Kaleva]

24. This site says otherwise:

The percentage of Male Population Surviving from Age 21 to Age 65 was 53.9%.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

So, a little over half of the adult males in 1940 could expect to live to the age of 65. In 1990, 72.3% of adult males could expect to live to the age of 65. A 20% increase.

[Hannah Bell]

26. "otherwise" than *what*? you may want to reread what i wrote.

i said nothing about the percentage of people living to age 65.

I said:

"fail. it's about life expectancy over age 65, not from birth. White males in 1940 who
survived to age 60 could expect to live to age 75.

and life expectancy at birth in 1940 wasn't 58. It was 63. another fail.
It was 58 sometime in the 1920s.
do you just make stuff up?"

****

as for the larger percent of people surviving to age 65, it also means: they're paying social security taxes up to age 65. so the significance is -- what?

the only significant factor is how long their life expectancy AFTER 65 is, & that has increased an average of less than 5 years -- with most of the increase in the upper-income groups.


from your link:

If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood.

As Table 1 shows, the majority of Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65, and those who did live to 65 could look forward to collecting benefits for many years into the future. So we can observe that for men, for example, almost 54% of the them could expect to live to age 65 if they survived to age 21, and men who attained age 65 could expect to collect Social Security benefits for almost 13 years (and the numbers are even higher for women).

Also, it should be noted that there were already 7.8 million Americans age 65 or older in 1935 (cf. Table 2), so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.3 million Americans age 65 or older by 1940 (when monthly benefits started). So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits.

[WyLoochka]

17. Why are you quoting Alan Simpson verbatim?

That's his line.

And he is wrong. Dead old folks wrong. I'll put together the explanation of why this claim is so off the mark if I have to. Don't have time now.

Maybe I missed the sarcasm thingy in your post?

[dkf]

23. First time I heard it was today on the very show we are currently discussing

I haven't heard anything from Simpson except his "tits" comment.

[loudsue]

13. He was sure pushing the "Dems have to NEGOTIATE" meme.

He kept spewing the line that "dems are going to have to GIVE something" in this negotiation.

I say...the Dems should PUSH for MORE, and give absofuckinglutely NOTHING. But Lawrence O'Donnell really wanted to make sure he got in his little made in the CIA subliminal messages about negotiations MEAN that you have to GIVE something.

Fuck him. Fuck that.

[niyad]

18. he sounded like an absolute jerk tonight--after he went after the OWL ED-- I quit listening.

quite frankly, if this is going to be the tone of his new show, I don't think I will be watching.

[BigBearJohn]

19. I agree with you 100% I won't be watching his show. That's for sure. Besides, he's boring as hell

[bbgrunt]

20. He was quite the prick tonight.

[whathehell]

21. I had the same reaction. n/t

[TheWebHead]

31. it's about what's in the trust fund...

These (Social Security Trust Fund) balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures--but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government's ability to pay benefits.

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=1209&type=0&sequence=1

[Hannah Bell]

34. rescind the bush tax cuts on the top 1%. or fund it through sovereign debt, which

would have the side effect of pumping up the economy.

[TheWebHead]

35. that still retains the trust fund to congress

to spend with it as they please. the only way to pry away those funds from being spent by congress is to have individuals fund it with definable assets like treasury bonds, corporate bonds, munis, equities, CDs, etc. As it is, if there was a danger of default, the government would default on social security obligations before treasuries because the financial impact of the latter would be much worse.

[Hannah Bell]

41. no, it doesn't. it redeems the SS TF securities & returns SS to its traditional 1-year reserve.

Which, as has been the case since the inception of the program, is borrowed into the general budget in exchange for US securities.

your default scenario isn't happening. the us is in no danger of defaulting on anything, & if it were cds, munis & all your other options would be no hedge.

[DCBob]

38. One of the problems with SS is many wealthy people are collecting benefits who dont need it at all..

It seems to me this needs to be addressed. One change could be a means test to qualify for receiving SS beyond the amount a person put in. This at least would stop the payouts to long living rich folks.

[Hannah Bell]

42. 2/3 of those collecting SS rely on it for half or more of their retirement income.

and the other 1/3 paid into the system & can get no more than the maximum benefit, which is about $2300/mo.

once you turn ss into a "welfare" program funded by high earners who get nothing in return, kiss it goodbye.

reagan already went a ways toward that goal by taxing it. it's already means-tested.

leave it the hell alone, it's fine.

your "solution" to the non-existent "problem" isn't needed.

[DCBob]

44. You seem to be the only person on earth who thinks there is no problem with the SS system..

why is that??

[Hannah Bell]

45. you seem ill-informed. why is that? maybe you better take the simpson challenge too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/senator-simpsons-quick-bu_b_698981.html




what the projections are based on. do you see any contradictory aspects in those assumptions?

[The Magistrate]

46. No, Sir, Just the Only Person Bothering To Engage You On the Matter At Length Tonight

The only real problem with the Social Security system is that the elite financial powers and their political pawns want to evade reasonable taxation,and their legal obligations to working people, and instead loot the pension system, as they have done in so many private businesses recently.

[Romulox]

55. Um, the pension system has ALREADY been looted. The money is gone.

It would be easier to take your "Sir/Madame" schtick seriously if you had your basic facts right. :hi:

[Hannah Bell]

68. the right-wing talking point is noted. george bush said something similar:

"The money-payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."

http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/SocialSecurity/5-03-21SSFundsSpent.htm

But the Trust Fund debt, some say, is “just IOUs”. You’ve heard the spiel. Here’s Bush in 2005:

"Now, let me tell you something about the Social Security system. It’s not a trust. A lot of people think, well, we’re collecting your money and we’re holding it for you, and then when you retire, we’re going to give it back to you. That’s not the way it works. We’re collecting your money, and if we’ve got money left over — in other words, if the — if there’s more money than the benefits promised to be paid in our hands, we’re spending it and leaving behind an IOU. That’s how it works. It’s called a pay-as-you-go system. You pay, we go ahead and spend it." (Laughter.)2

Isn’t he cute? Here he is again, same year:

“We take your payroll taxes, we pay out the benefits to current retirees, and with the money left over, we pay…for other programs. And there’s nothing left but file cabinets with IOUs. And that’s how it works.”3

Let’s not ignore his second-in-command. Here’s Cheney on the mission:

“Now, about 1.7 trillion of that is in the so-called Trust Fund: that is, money - that’s money that’s been collected that’s not there as cash at this point.”4

They don’t sound very encouraging, do they?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=326490&mesg_id=326496


In fact, bush has been saying this as far back as his run for governor of texas.

it's a long-standing right-wing talking point.

he thanks you for catapulting the propaganda.

[Romulox]

73. LOL. So now the Trust Fund hasn't been spent. Just make up whatever "fact" might suit you!

:bozo:

[Hannah Bell]

83. it's funny how people say what they do when they go to attack other people.

[Romulox]

86. Waste. Of. Time.

:you'reawasteoftime: :hi:

[The Magistrate]

71. Welshing On the Markers, Sir, Is The Final Step In The Theft

That is what is being set up by the present propaganda campaign. Absent this, there is no reason to suppose the bonded obligations of the U.S. Treasury held by the Social Security Trust Fund area any less a high grade investment storing value than are Treasury bonds in the hands of private investors or foreign central banks. What is being sought is a formula that will enable the Treasury to welsh on its markers to Social Security, without calling into question the worth of its markers in those other hands. In other words, the working people of the country are to be impoverished in order to maintain interest payments to billionaires and foreign banks and governments.

Bear in mind, too, that all this is based on projections of what will be two or three decades in the future. Even the Soviets, who reserved the right of wholesale execution for deviation, contented themselves with five year projections. One of the great amusements of going to primary sources in studying history is the high comedy provided by predictions of what would happen in ten or twenty years made fifty or a hundred years ago....

[Romulox]

74. OK, but it's been done. Time to deal with it. nt

[The Magistrate]

76. Pay Up, Sir: That Is How One Deals With a Marker

The pay-roll tax should be uncapped, with provisions added to capture a proper portion of disguised salaries, such as stock options and bonus packages, and a surcharge levied on capital gains taxes, these things all to be dedicated to making good the Treasury's obligations to Social Security.

[Romulox]

79. Well, I agree with every word of that.

Sincerely.

[TheWebHead]

53. there are no tangible assets in the trust fund

that simple fact should leave no doubt there is at least a problem with the social security system, no matter what proposed remedies are on the table. Even though ideologically the idea of personal accounts seem tied to one political party, it is one way people can have tangible assets in their accounts that short of government seizure couldn't be touched... even if you forced investments only in fixed income.

[Hannah Bell]

69. funny that those non-existent assets are REDEEMED EVERY YEAR, then.

and have been for 70 years.

when did du become an outlet for republican talking points?

[Romulox]

54. A "Marxist" who is against progressive taxation! ("Welfare", she calls it.)

:rofl:

[Hannah Bell]

67. lol. nice spin for someone who wants to completely alter the original design of the social security

program -- to transform it into a welfare program funded exclusively by workers.

you want a welfare program, fund it through the income tax & let CAPITAL pay.

there's no point in a separate social security program at all under your redesign. except that capital doesn't have to pay.

[Romulox]

72. ALL progressive taxation is "Welfare" by that formulation. It's a nonsensical position.

:hi:

[The Magistrate]

Actually, Sir, It Is The Argument Employed By President Roosevelt In the New Deal Period

The idea was that to make Social Security available to all on the same terms, regardless of income or need, would remove the social and political stigma of 'welfare' from the program, and give more prosperous people some stake in it, thus muting (bribing) opposition to the measure.

Adding any means test would destroy this, and taxing earnings clear to the top without a corresponding increase in pay-outs for the better paid, would certainly run counter to it. My support for the latter measure does not blind me to this alteration of the system's nature; it simply seems to me the politics of the situation could be made to fall decisively against the very small cohort discomfited.

[The Magistrate]

77. Actually, Sir, It Is The Argument Employed By President Roosevelt In the New Deal Period

The idea was that to make Social Security available to all on the same terms, regardless of income or need, would remove the social and political stigma of 'welfare' from the program, and give more prosperous people some stake in it, thus muting (bribing) opposition to the measure.

Adding any means test would destroy this, and taxing earnings clear to the top without a corresponding increase in pay-outs for the better paid, would certainly run counter to it. My support for the latter measure does not blind me to this alteration of the system's nature; it simply seems to me the politics of the situation could be made to fall decisively against the very small cohort discomfited.

[Enthusiast]

47. He received these talking points. nt

[Cetacea]

51. If true it's not a very good sign.

I had the same notion.

[xchrom]

52. recommend

[AlinPA]

59. He first said that SS would go broke in 2037 and then the guest corrected him that it would

still pay >75%.

[Hannah Bell]

70. he should have corrected him further:

1. an economic forecast about 30 years in the future is worth about two cents
2. 75% of future scheduled benefits, which are higher than today's in real terms, & are also *projections*

[hansberrym]

80. The sky is not falling, but there is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

If one can only pay 75% of what is owed, one is by definition broke.


1. an economic forecast about 30 years in the future is worth about two cents
Yes and no. the economy in any given year 25 or 30 years from now is not knowable, but we are talking about averages over that 25 year span.
And if the governemnt can't make reasonable forecasts and plan accordingly, then it should not even be running the program!


2. 75% of future scheduled benefits, which are higher than today's in real terms, & are also *projections*

Scheduled benefits will be higher in real terms because payments into the system have been higher. But rates of return have been falling and will continue to fall. When rates of return go negative for a great many of the participants it will be difficult to justify continuing the program.

Had Reagan and O'Neil carried through on the second half of the 1980's reform ( and held down rates of return to a fair rate for retirees beginning in the 80's) then we would not be in this mess.


The problem: everyone wants to be Santa, especially when it comes to spending someone else's money. Even Reagan could not stand to be the "bad guy" and pay out only a fair and sustainable rate of return.

[Hannah Bell]

82. baloney. all of it.