Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Our own government-controlled Enron

Here’s yet another Social Security review and why not? From Stuart Butler in the LA Times (use BugMeNot for registration if needed):

As the Social Security system itself has aged, payroll taxes have grown relentlessly and the return on those taxes has fallen dramatically. When Social Security began, the payroll tax was just 2% of income. Now it's 12.4%. Today, the average male worker about to retire will typically get just a 1.27% return on his lifetime of taxes — less than he'd get from a savings account. That's bad enough, but the younger you are, the worse it will get. A 25-year-old worker can expect a return of minus-0.64% — he loses money.

Some retirement "security" program. Imagine what Congress would say if a private company was taking in billions of dollars from millions of working Americans and then giving them back less money in retirement.
That’s Social Security for you: a system so great, they had to make it compulsory.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is a great point, and it vexes me to know end how the supposed "masters of the media" can't seem to get this basic point across to the people.

Whenever someone challenges Bush about Social Security, the President needs to say, "Social Security? The system is so great that a young worker today putting $1000 in the system will only get $990 back at retirement. Social Security will earn the young workers of America negative interest!"

But instead, it's all about whether the right word is "privitization" or "personal accounts."

New proposed motto: "It's about getting back more money than you put in, stupid!"

And none of the policiticans seems to be pointing that out.