Would you take your social security money and invest it?

Question

I think I could do a much better job for paying for my retirement if the government just gave me control of my social security money. I don't mind not being able to touch it until i'm 60-65. So would you rather invest it and not be able to touch it and get NO help from the government at retirement except medicare, or pay the government and have them constantly robbing money from social security?

Answer 1

I certainly would
Take would take it out of the borrowing pool that they've been dipping into and robbing the current funds read below

What do you do when you want to screw only the working people of your nation with the largest tax increase in history and hand those trillions of dollars to your wealthy campaign contributors, yet not have anybody realize you've done it? If you're Ronald Reagan, you call in Alan Greenspan.
Through the "golden years of the American middle class" - the 1940s through 1982 - the top income tax rate for the hyper-rich had been between 90 and 70 percent. Ronald Reagan wanted to cut that rate dramatically, to help out his political patrons. He did this with a massive tax cut in the summer of 1981.
The only problem was that when Reagan took his meat axe to our tax code, he produced mind-boggling budget deficits. Voodoo economics didn't work out as planned, and even after borrowing so much money that this year we'll pay over $100 billion just in interest on the money Reagan borrowed to make the economy look good in the 1980s, Reagan couldn't come up with the revenues he needed to run the government.
Coincidentally, the actuaries at the Social Security Administration were beginning to get worried about the Baby Boomer generation, who would begin retiring in big numbers in fifty years or so. They were a "rabbit going through the python" bulge that would require a few trillion more dollars than Social Security could easily collect during the same 20 year or so period of their retirement. We needed, the actuaries said, to tax more heavily those very persons who would eventually retire, so instead of using current workers' money to pay for the Boomer's Social Security payments in 2020, the Boomers themselves would have pre-paid for their own retirement.
Reagan got Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alan Greenspan together to form a commission on Social Security reform, along with a few other politicians and economists, and they recommend a near-doubling of the Social Security tax on the then-working Boomers. That tax created - for the first time in history - a giant savings account that Social Security could use to pay for the Boomers' retirement.
This was a huge change. Prior to this, Social Security had always paid for today's retirees with income from today's workers (it still is today). The Boomers were the first generation that would pay Social Security taxes both to fund current retirees and save up enough money to pay for their own retirement. And, after the Boomers were all retired and the savings account - called the "Social Security Trust Fund" - was all spent, the rabbit would have finished its journey through the python and Social Security could go back to a "pay as you go" taxing system.
Thus, within the period of a few short years, Reagan dramatically dropped the income tax on America's most wealthy by more than half, and roughly doubled the Social Security tax on people earning $30,000 or less. It was, simultaneously, the largest income tax cut in America's history (almost entirely for the very wealthy), and the most massive tax increase in the history of the nation (which entirely hit working-class people).
But Reagan still had a problem. His tax cuts for the wealthy - even when moderated by subsequent tax increases - weren't generating enough money to invest properly in America's infrastructure, schools, police and fire departments, and military. The country was facing bankruptcy.
No problem, suggested Greenspan. Just borrow the Boomer's savings account - the money in the Social Security Trust Fund - and, because you're borrowing "government money" to fund "government expenditures," you don't have to list it as part of the deficit. Much of the deficit will magically seem to disappear, and nobody will know what you did for another 50 years when the Boomers begin to retire 2015.
Reagan jumped at the opportunity. As did George H. W. Bush. As did Bill Clinton (although Al Gore argued strongly that Social Security funds should not be raided, but, instead, put in a "lock box"). And so did George W. Bush.
The result is that all that money - trillions of dollars - that has been taxed out of working Boomers (the ceiling has risen from the tax being on your first $30,000 of income to the first $90,000 today) has been borrowed and spent. What are left behind are a special form of IOUs - an unique form of Treasury debt instruments similar (but not identical) to those the government issues to borrow money from China today to fund George W. Bush's most recent tax cuts for billionaires (George Junior is still also "borrowing" from the Social Security Trust Fund).
Former Bush Junior Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recounts how Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Cheney was either ignorant or being disingenuous - it would be more accurate to say, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter if you rip off the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for them, and don't report that borrowing from the Boomers as part of the deficit." DeleteReplyForwardMove...

Answer 2

It is a proven fact that if 40 years ago instead of paying into social security you could have invested the same amount of money in the stock market you would be a multi-millionaire. Why Democrats are so opposed to allowing Americans the opportunity to have a more secure and prosporous retirement is a mystery to me.

Answer 3

Some people are not disciplined enough to save on their own.You think living in a nursing home is not similar to a debtors prison. I think if they are going to take it at least they could increase the rate of interest earned over the years. Really what is it 2%.? What ever it is it is guaranteed. Not like all the interest and money recently loss by seniors who invested in stocks and mutual funds, myself included. I barely managed to salvage my investment and gain back !% over the 8 years I had my savings from work in a IRA. I have already retired on my SS. Since my job was outsourced and I am to ole for anyone to want to hire I guess I will have to downsize some more.

Answer 4

the choice to denationalise Social protection could desire to no longer be on the table very long. It replaced into an determination decrease back interior the previous due 90s and early 2000s yet no longer anymore. What they have been going to do replaced into section out the share of money that went in direction of Social protection and the rest might bypass right into a private account. Social protection replaced into amassing greater money than they needed to conceal the retiring seniors, so that they did no longer choose all of it. by way of doing this, they might have decreased the quantity of reward that individuals might assemble from Social protection and make it less complicated to section it out added interior the destiny. they did no longer try this regardless of the indisputable fact that and quickly the toddler Boomers would be in retirement. as quickly as they retire, the Social protection fund will finally bypass damaging, because of the fact there is merely no longer adequate suckers to help the device.

Answer 5

Yes I would and any freedom loving American would answer the same way. I do not need the government to seize my money with the promise of Social Security someday. Let me handle it. If you are to inept to provide for your own future then you shouldn't be allowed to vote. Quit seizing my money for your lack of planning. If you think you will retire of Social Security you are sadly mistaken.

Answer 6

Yes I would,I cant understand why people think the govt is going to invest in our money,they have already spent it.This is why so many were opposed to President Bushs social security plan,congress and senate would have to be held accountable as to where OUR money has gone.

Answer 7

I will be surprised if I ever even get it.

The system is completely broke and no one is going to fix it.

Within five years you will be hearing of people having to forfeit their SS to pay off outstanding credit card debt. There will be debtors prisons for those who can't or won't. You think this is a fantasy, but it's clearly coming.

Answer 8

The market can be verrry unreliable. I'd rather stick with the independent fund that it is.

Answer 9

Yes i would invest it