Your Retirement has been Re-distributed

[KeithE]

partially to the rich in many ways unbeknownst to many.



Read the links in the article above for more details that back up the claims. Challenge me and Paul Buchheit if they are not supported. I found two of his 7 points slightly overstated, one that could be misleading to the statistically naive, and one play on conservative’s words. Guess which ones.

[Dave Roberts]

Overstated, perhaps, but it's frighteningly true that the middle and lower classes are being reduced to debt servitude by the lack of ways to make retirement livable. Of course, as I've stated before, those earning only from investments pay nothing into Social Security at all which impoverishes the Social Security pool. As one who pays 15.3% to Social Security, I feel deeply cheated.

[William Thornton]

Wrong way to look at soc sec. You get, theoretically, the results of your contribution. You don't, theoretically, have a claim on income of others, though I recognize that's the idea for some Americans.

[Dave Roberts]

[William Thornton]

Yes. I recognize though, that nothing is beyond reach of gummit when looking for ways to take money from some and give it to others. What you get in SS depends on what you earn and put in, in theory anyway. Wage earners were forced to save to receive some guaranteed security on their old age. If we tap non wage earners or those gummit thinks have too much wealth to guarantee greater levels of security for those who are judged to need it, then just call it a wealth transfer tax and not go through the charade of calling it something else.

I hear that there are already taxes on investment income...

[Sandy]

[Mrs Haruo]

AMEN and Right On, Sandy. I don't know what the Mister and I will live on for the rest of our retirement years. I haven't been able to work full time since an auto accident knocked me out of the carpentry trade a few days before Haruo and I saw each other face to face for the first time in 30 years. I don't know what he saw in a tired middle aged woman in a foam neck brace, but before too long he was dropping hints that if we pledged our troth (or with our house keeping habits more like pledging our trough) I wouldn't have to work so hard to keep a roof over my head. 10 yrs. later it is OUR roof and not the landlords, but we still wonder about our future as retirees who will have to keep making a living one way or another. Fortunately we have cheap tastes. I have no pride. When he was unemployed for so long, I wasn't ashamed to be walking home from the food bank with bags tied all over my walker. Most of the food we made use of if we got a pot of stew going with the veggies that had been gleaned from local grocery stores and restaurants before they ended up in the local landfill. The ones that rotted too fast enhanced our compost pile. With the help of some very old cookbooks I am learning the skills that brought my Mom and Dad and the generations before them through depressions and panics dust bowls before Social Security came along, but I feel sad for younger folks who never learned where food comes from and can't cook from scratch, or improvise needed articles when the Wal mart has rejected your credit card.

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

Being among the baby boomers, I see more and more of my age group working far into retirement, not because they want to or even feel that productive. It's because they are trying to stretch what they have to keep a livable situation. Social Security is one part of the puzzle, and it has become the target of the anti-government right wing because it does provide a greater percentage of return to those at the lowest end of the spectrum and also provides SSI benefits to people who have not worked under Social Security long enough to have the 40 quarters required for benefits. SSI is not a retirement investment, just as survivors' benefits and disability benefits are not. We have a whole industry of lawyers now getting rich by gaining disability benefits for those who may or may not be incapable of performing gainful employment. They get you benefits and if they win get the back benefits to which you might be entitled as their fee (usually $10,000) or more per client. Medicare is also a part of this package, though it functions with different standards. Again, however, Medicare is not just given to those who have paid sufficient premiums into the system. It is also awarded in some SSI situations and in all disability situations.

The gutting of private pensions under the deregulation enacted from the Reagan Revolution forward has allowed corporations to gut the pension plans that were once the keystone of many people's retirements. Privatizing these into 401(k) plans has left many workers as losers because they did not have the skills to invest wisely and have been hurt deeply by the de-industrialization of our country under NAFTA and other ways to take jobs overseas. The contract with America's workers has been dissolved in order to favor the top earners in our country. The concept of "the general welfare" has been disowned in many other areas as well; ie. public education.

[Sandy]

Having been on the payroll of churches and Christian schools for all but about five of my working years, the retirement benefits that I've accrued privately over 35 years of working will be a drop in the bucket compared to our actual need for a couple of reasons. One, when I first began setting savings aside, the projections on the growth of interest rates was much higher than it has actually turned out to be, and the projected income, with full participation, was a lot higher. Deregulation (thank you Ronald Reagan) and the collapse of the savings and loan industry (thank you George H.W. Bush) led to my retirement investment being sold to several different firms over about a 15 year period, and with declining interest rates, and increased "fees" the growth was negligible. Ultimately, during the Bush recession, the company which had most of my retirement investment, called Western Investors, went into receivership. What I was sold was the promise that if I invested $30,000 over a lifetime of working, I would have a retirement fund with a balance of about $120,000 that would pay a nice monthly income off interest when I retired. After the assets of Western Investors were liquidated, I came out with an account of about $10,000, and at today's interest, the monthly dividend won't pay for dinner for two. That's not unusual, by the way. About half of my generation is in the same boat. A lot of people have become wealthy in the private pension and retirement business, off of my generation, and they couldn't care less if we are left holding the bag. They made their fortune off of us, and stuck us with the tab. Thank God Congress didn't let Dubya privatize Social Security, or we wouldn't have it to fall back on.

[William Thornton]

[Haruo]

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

Good report on the sorry state of retirement savings of Americans these days. SS will not handle it. Personally I'm in very good shape but not so most Americans. Many/most have not been able to save much due to the lack of shared prosperity over the last 30-40 years. Defined pension plans are a thing of the past. The financial crisis cut the nesteggs (modest as many were) in half. Sure some went on an early spending sprees but you can't blame that no most of those in tough situations now. Dealing with wage inequality, and doing away with tax breaks and other means of re-distributing wealth to the already wealthy is a necessary action in the long term. And this can only done by the government (once churches and private source fill that bill, I'll start considering taking that responsibility to "promote the general welfare" away from the government).

Back to work before I lose my cool. Do read the report and "ponder anew".

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

Notice how horribly impoverished the wealthy are every time the Democrats stage a coup and run both elective branches for a year or two...

[ET]

[Dave Roberts]

ET, I am intrigued by your examples of venture capitalism as a means of supporting the public good. A venture capitalist invests not to lose or to give away money. He or she invests in startups with the awareness that some of them will lose money and fail but with the hope that he or she will reap the windfall when the venture becomes profitable. Your example is not about the public good, except in the case of charitable gifts, and I have seen public fundraisers that included the price of "naming rights." the means to purchase a bit of immortality. Good may have been done, but the goal was not always just to give something away. It is often to purchase something. Try for better examples when you reload your flamethrower.

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

I was not arguing any of your straw men, William. ET seemed to be claiming altruism behind venture capitalism. Some of them have done great good. Others are about themselves. It was simply an observation based on the seeming claim in ET's post.

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]