The government, the tech bros, the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Russians, and others have been collecting all of our personal data for years.
I finally relented and opened a Facebook account because there are too many people that I cannot communicate with without it. I figure Zuckerberg already has all my personal info anyway.
I don’t have TikTok
And soon a piece of your social security account to play with as he pleases.
The tech bros are now in charge of who gets access to their own social security accounts.
They have your name and SSN. They have the AI tech to screen your name against your social media accounts. And when the AI finds you’re not thinking ‘the right way’ about things guess what’s going to happen to access to your account? It’s going to have interruptions in service.
So you better start thinking the right way…you better supporting CJ and the tech bros…
Please remind me who CJ is?
After the ATT Mobile hack a few years ago, my SSN was posted all over the internet. I discovered a few new accounts that I had to get closed.
Nothing Trump or his master Musk do can be wrong in your eyes, can it?
Interesting insight.
P45/47
An alternative to OP’s suggestion: Kill the current SSA and start anew. Have the 13% wage reduction placed into a “retirement 401 or IRA” solely for the benefit of the contributor. Make it tax free on distribution & not taxable for contributing.
The 20-somethings start now. The 40 somethings keep the current system.
The current SSA is FUBAR. The people are incompetent. I’m going through a situation with them that is totally unacceptable - because not one person can resolve it bye phone or by letter. Wait-maybe in 60 days, they say.
THE ISSUE: They are withholding an extra $600 from my check because of “arrearage in medical deductions”. Ok fine. Maybe so, but the letter they sent me doesn’t say where the arrearage originated or when. The letter just states I’m in arrears.
Reagan was correct - Government is the problem. . .
SSA is presently set up so the maximum amount of people get the minimum amount of money. It’s done that way specifically to make sure the stupid component of the population doesn’t end up destitute.
And since all of us agree that 50% of the population are idiots I think this is a pretty wise plan.
Turn SSA into a self-managed 401K and stupid people will lose all their money, because they are poor investors. The poor slobs who end up with nothing will be destitute, and become a tax burden on the states’ taxpayers who will now have to support them. The present SSA system prevents that from happening for most retirees. They can’t gamble away the food necessary to feed them.
SS is an imperfect human system, da. But by any objective measure it has been quite sucsessful in providing at least a some amount of income, with a degree of dignity, to the recievers. But, and I will continue to make this big but, it only has a future as a federal goverment system, because the federal goverment is the monopoly supplier of the currency it is paid in. Only the federal goverment has the ability to meet all of the SS obligations into perpetuity - no other entity can do this.
Please explain again why you feel this is the case.
FM, I think you’re being generous. . . I wouldn’t be surprised if it approached 75-80%. “People are stupid” is a mantra of mine for the last 50 years. . .
The “retirement IRA” couldn’t be withdrawn until retirement age. Just like now. Heck, make it a “government savings bond” investment @5%. Compounded for 45 years at “hamburger-flipper or barista” pay rates would be huge.
For many, being poor is a choice! Others, it’s an accident. We need to address the accident folks. “Choice” is a matter of free will.
[Yeah, I’m a COB-cynical old bastard]
Only the federal government can make $ with a keystroke on a computer
So, you’re saying that with the federal system, if the US government didn’t have enough money to pay for SSA outlays they always have the ability to increase the money supply so that they would. Correct?
Not quite- I am saying, as the issuer of the currency it is impossible for the federal government to ever “not have enough dollars”. The federal government can no more run out of dollars than a scoreboard can run out of points.
This is an important concept to understand. The federal budget is absolutely nothing at all like a household or state or local government budget- nothing. Every default concept when you hear terms like debt and deficits that you instinctively define in terms of a household budget do not apply to the federal government- none.
When we are talking about government programs we are, IMO for political reasons- not fiscal reasons always asking the worst question first. “ how do we pay for it”. When it comes to the federal government they can buy anything denominated in dollars any time and in any amount. “How do we pay for it” is the wrong question. The correct question we should be asking is “should we buy it”.
Ok. I understand.
In my proposed system, states are allowed to form leagues to administer their own SSAs. Let’s say two leagues. A Blue league and a Red League, each with their own SSA, which they separately administer according to the political beliefs of their league’s citizens.
In light of today’s news, having two different SSA acts as watertight compartments to the pension supply. Right now a small group of tech bros is raiding personnel data from SSA accounts. In my system one league might make that mistake, but not both.
The leagues are both still part of the USA. They use US money. They both still have congressional members. Their money supply is still administered by the same federal reserve. The only difference is that instead of one SSA there are two.
If the US money supply needs adjustment in response to the needs of the two SSAs it would be no different than it is now.
IMO - this only has a chance of guaranteed solvency as long as the federal government- as the issuer of the currency, guarantees it. Which, again IMO the federal government would never nor should ever seed that guarantee to a state.
The, to be kind, volatility and vagrancy policy possibilities at the state level are way too unpredictable for something like this.
An aside - how does this look for someone who works in 6 states over his working lifetime.
Almost off my soapbox-
You want an even scarier thing to worry about.
We are about to take $ we can make with a keystroke. To buy a speculative investment held, by design, anonymously by individual investors. On the hope that at some point that investment increases- so we can sell it- to get more $ we can still make with a keystroke
There will be many individuals, that we will never be able to completely identify, that will gain amazing wealth from this.
Forget tariffs, and Greenland and DEI and all that noise- the purchase of bitcoin by the US government for “strategic” reserves is job one - and the biggest distribution of money to the wealthy of all time.
Not to a state. A league of states. In case of the Blue League maybe 60% of the total population. Representing maybe 60% of the country’s GNP.
The same senators/congressional members that serve in the US congress could also serve as the watchdogs of their leagues’ separate departments of Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Social Security Administration. (If a league decided to have them). The federal versions of these would be discontinued.
You have a separate SS accounts for each league. In the simplest world, you would have a Blue SS account and a Red SS account. No different then if you had taught for 20 years in Alabama and been a policeman for 20 years in Nebraska. Under the right circumstance in that scenario you would draw two pensions.
Special case: I have people who work for me in Seattle who live in Montana. They earn the money working for a company based in Washington, that works in Alaska, while they live in Montana. In my system their SSA would be based in the Blue League, because that is the closest legal determination as to where they worked, even though the person would live in a Red League state.
The situation would be analogous to the Employment Security system of each state. They have to make similar decisions all the time.
Are you referring this to me?
Because my ideal Blue League SSA would be a complete mirror image of the federal SSA/policies circa 2023, with all its bumps and warts.
Other leagues would be free to run theirs however they want.