Most of the boomers don't care about their children and think handing off 100 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities is just a normal situation that every generation has to deal with. Please, the greatest generation never left you with any sort of unmanageable debt; you didn't build this great country on anything but debt, and now you want the generations below you to pay for your cake so you can eat it too.

The boomers are the worst generation. The sad part is, most of them will be dead before the country collapses on itself. Thankfully, the boomers legacy has already been set; ruining the greatest country that ever was.

I've said this before, Medicare/Medicaid expenditures are actually HIGHER than SS payments. Yet take a look at your check - 1.2% for Medicare and 6.2% for SS. Americans have paid for less than 20% of their Medicare, no wonder it's insolvent. So you've got an average benefit of $2 that they've paid $1.20 for. Chop the benefit 25% and raise FICA 1pt (15%) and it's fixed, temporarily at least.

believer;1190239 wrote:I can see cuts in Medicaid, stiffer rules on Food Stamp qualifications, and a repeal of ObamaKare.

Labeling Social Security and Medicare (to a lesser degree) "entitlements", however, is a bit of a stretch.

It is, indeed, an entitlement in the sense that millions of Americans have paid into the system by Federal law for decades and are now entitled to expect the Feds to make good on their part of the "bargain." Again, the end result of the grand experiment inflicted upon the American people by the grandfather of modern American socialism - FDR - and his liberal allies in Congress.

Here's how I (and millions of other "greedy Boomers") now see it:

• My federally mandated Social Security (and Medicare) payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were tucked away in a reasonably safe and relatively solvent account for decades until DC political idiots on both sides of the aisle raided the account to give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers (oops class warfare - my bad) in exchange for their votes thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.
  
• Just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, the DC political idiots on both sides of the aisle pulled the football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67 (I'm in that category). Now the DC idiots are considering moving the goalposts AGAIN. Rest assured that if the eeeevil for-profit private financial industry attempted to pull this bull**** on its customers, the Feds would have their CEO's before Senate & House committees on C-Span gleefully ripping them all new sets of ****s.
  
• The incompetent DC idiots spent our money so profusely that they kept on spending our money even after they ran out of money. Now they come to the American taxpayers and say we need tax increases to pay off their IDIOCY. To add insult to injury they have the unmitigated gall of labeling the taxpayer as "greedy" for calling them out for being criminally incompetent. That's beyond insane.
  

Oh and spare me the boo hooing about how the poor, poor Gen X,Y and Z-ers are now paying the bill. The Boomers paid the bill for the Greatest Generation...and still are. Hence the the dangers of socialism folks.

All we're asking for now is that the Grand Socialist Contract with America we've been forced by federal mandate to participate in for decades be fulfilled by the incompetent DC idiots.

I'm not saying you're way off for feeling that way. But I'm 34, and I'm not expecting one dime of my retirement from SS. I look at it this way- I'm funding the retirement of current SS recipients- nothing more, nothing less. Until the system is fixed, I don't expect the next generation to fund my retirement.

I really, really don't get this

What's not to get? I don't like the system, but that is the way it was set up long before the baby boomers were old enough to vote. It's pretty simple really, you pay for your parent's retirement safety net. There are plenty of countries out there that have set up 'pay as you go' systems. You just have to have the balls politically to do what's necessary. The only reason that this is even an issue is because of the actuarial numbers, and the current economic downturn. The system could have been easily tweaked 10 years ago. It wasn't...and that is the only thing you can lay on the 'boomers' as a generation.

The boomers are the worst generation. The sad part is, most of them will be dead before the country collapses on itself. Thankfully, the boomers legacy has already been set; ruining the greatest country that ever was

WAAAH! QQ. You grew up in good times, and never knew hard times till 2008. ...Snotty nose pup whining about his parents...you think this is new? I said the same thing in 1968....and you could go back generation by generation till you get to the Founding Fathers who allowed slavery in the Constitution which cost 500,000 lives and war and destruction on our own soil to 'fix'.
Waaah! waaah! ....time to put on your big boy pants and deal with it.

I look at it this way- I'm funding the retirement of current SS recipients- nothing more, nothing less. Until the system is fixed, I don't expect the next generation to fund my retirement.

You are providing the safety net for the previous generation, and there is no reason why you shouldn't expect the same from your kids.
No baby boomer is living the high life on SSI. It pays less than $30,000 even if you were a top contributor. For most people who worked their whole lives , it is less that $ 20,000.
If there were no SSI...you'd be picking up the tab one way or another anyway...either by having to financially take care of your parents if they were destitute, or thru taxes when the elderly who can not pay for their bills/homes/food become wards of the state

HitsRus;1190948 wrote:WAAAH! QQ. You grew up in good times, and never knew hard times till 2008. ...Snotty nose pup whining about his parents...you think this is new? I said the same thing in 1968....and you could go back generation by generation till you get to the Founding Fathers who allowed slavery in the Constitution which cost 500,000 lives and war and destruction on our own soil to 'fix'.

Waaah! waaah! ....time to put on your big boy pants and deal with it.

You are providing the safety net for the previous generation, and there is no reason why you shouldn't expect the same from your kids.

No baby boomer is living the high life on SSI. It pays less than $30,000 even if you were a top contributor. For most people who worked their whole lives , it is less that $ 20,000.

If their were no SSI...you'd be picking up the tab one way or another anyway...either by having to financially take care of your parents if they were destitute, or thru taxes when the elderly who can not pay for their bills/homes/food become wards of the state

Standing O

HitRus, no generation has ever left another with 100 trillion + in unfunded liabilities. It's not whining; its reality. If you are under 50, you are in the same boat I am, we'll see how much whining you do when a loaf of bread costs 50 million dollars and you can barely afford to eat much less do anything relevant.

I'd personally love to see the expert and all knowing HitRUs solve 100 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. A small gas tax should do it :rolleyes:

Yawn....when you buy your first house, you will have an unfunded liability. All that is necessary is that you make your mortgage payments out of your income year after year. It will require about a 2% increase in the payroll tax, a reduction of benefits, a change in the eligibility age, some other sort of revenue enhancement or a combination of the above to keep the fund solvent given today's circumstances. It's not that hard. It's been a while since I crunched the numbers, but a quarter increase in the gasoline tax would provide about $90 Billion/year for the fund...more than enough to cover the shortfall which up until 2010 had been running surpluses.

Fixing SSI isn't that hard...but the overall indebtedness of the country is. The country probably easily could have handled the initial round of bailouts that was necessary to stabilize the markets in 2008. However, those huge deficits have continued year after under the current administration with no signs of abatement....an administration, incidentally, that was elected with overwhelming support from Gen X and Y.

I am tired of class warfare, gender warfare, ethnic warfare, and generational warfare.

HitsRus;1191215 wrote:Yawn....when you buy your first house, you will have an unfunded liability. All that is necessary is that you make your mortgage payments out of your income year after year. It will require about a 2% increase in the payroll tax, a reduction of benefits, a change in the eligibility age, some other sort of revenue enhancement or a combination of the above to keep the fund solvent given today's circumstances. It's not that hard. It's been a while since I crunched the numbers, but a quarter increase in the gasoline tax would provide about $90 Billion/year for the fund...more than enough to cover the shortfall which up until 2010 had been running surpluses.

Fixing SSI isn't that hard...but the overall indebtedness of the country is. The country probably easily could have handled the initial round of bailouts that was necessary to stabilize the markets in 2008. However, those huge deficits have continued year after under the current administration with no signs of abatement....an administration, incidentally, that was elected with overwhelming support from Gen X and Y.

I am tired of class warfare, gender warfare, ethnic warfare, and generational warfare.

You're absolutely clueless. We deserve exactly what we get.

Well if I'm clueless, than we are in trouble. I'm a highly educated man with a 130+ IQ. Imagine what the 98's think. Will you'll vote for BHO again, snotty nosed pup?

I guess the people at the WSJ are clueless too.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704507404576178953997525940.html

feel free to post whatever doomsdayer link you might want so we can poke fun at it.

Holy crap, I'm agreeing with Sleeper.

Yeah the boomers had it rough, free sex, no consequences, pensions, retirement, etc. Just push it down. It will be your children that pay for this. We're looking at a US$20T to US$25T debt (if President Choomgange gets re-elected) within 4 years, within 15 years it might explode to US$35T.

I generally agree with Believer and HitsRus, but on the other hand, our society has peaked because we can't control our profligate spending.

"Retirement" will be out of Webster's dictionary for younger people - it won't happen. We can't pay people for 30 years after working for 35. There will be no retirement going forward. If some people are bitter, I can't blame them.

HitsRus;1191330 wrote:Well if I'm clueless, than we are in trouble. I'm a highly educated man with a 130+ IQ. Imagine what the 98's think. Will you'll vote for BHO again, snotty nosed pup?

I guess the people at the WSJ are clueless too.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704507404576178953997525940.html

feel free to post whatever doomsdayer link you might want so we can poke fun at it.

Social security isn't the only piece of the puzzle, son. Doomsdayer link? How about the CBO? http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43288

Anyone under 50 is not getting SS, Medicare or Medicaid. Period. There is no debate.

Manhattan Buckeye;1191420 wrote:Holy crap, I'm agreeing with Sleeper.

Yeah the boomers had it rough, free sex, no consequences, pensions, retirement, etc. Just push it down. It will be your children that pay for this. We're looking at a US$20T to US$25T debt (if President Choomgange gets re-elected) within 4 years, within 15 years it might explode to US$35T.

I generally agree with Believer and HitsRus, but on the other hand, our society has peaked because we can't control our profligate spending.

"Retirement" will be out of Webster's dictionary for younger people - it won't happen. We can't pay people for 30 years after working for 35. There will be no retirement going forward. If some people are bitter, I can't blame them.

I can't blame them either, but HitRus and I both have said that we used to express the same angst about the viability of SSI and Medicare when we were in our 20's and 30's. I used to have these very same doomsday conversations with my father and his friends in the past and they all had the same general reaction. Even the tail-end of the Greatest Generation had the same concerns about it.

I'm not saying the system isn't broke because it is. I'm simply saying this is nothing new and certainly not a generational issue....it's an American issue.

Changes do need to happen. But this is such a complicated fiscal and political issue that it's going to take some very smart and courageous people to right the ship. The knee jerk reaction is to take instantaneous draconian measures to resolve the issues. But this one needs to be incremental. This problem has been around for 8 decades and will probably take as long to correct the mess.

Americans are used to crisis management. Our country was founded upon it. When it comes down to it we Americans always find a way and we always come out stronger for it.

Manhattan Buckeye;1191420 wrote:Holy crap, I'm agreeing with Sleeper.

Yeah the boomers had it rough, free sex, no consequences, pensions, retirement, etc. Just push it down. It will be your children that pay for this. We're looking at a US$20T to US$25T debt (if President Choomgange gets re-elected) within 4 years, within 15 years it might explode to US$35T.

I generally agree with Believer and HitsRus, but on the other hand, our society has peaked because we can't control our profligate spending.

"Retirement" will be out of Webster's dictionary for younger people - it won't happen. We can't pay people for 30 years after working for 35. There will be no retirement going forward. If some people are bitter, I can't blame them.

I can't blame them either, but HitRus and I both have said that we used to express the same angst about the viability of SSI and Medicare when we were in our 20's and 30's. I used to have these very same doomsday conversations with my father and his friends in the past and they all had the same general reaction. Even the tail-end of the Greatest Generation had the same concerns about it.

I'm not saying the system isn't broke because it is. I'm simply saying this is nothing new and certainly not a generational issue....it's an American issue.

Changes do need to happen. But this is such a complicated fiscal and political issue that it's going to take some very smart and courageous people to right the ship. The knee jerk reaction is to take instantaneous draconian measures to resolve the issues. But this one needs to be incremental. This problem has been around for 8 decades and will probably take as long to correct the mess.

Blame Boomers all you want, but the socialist experiment known as SSI was thrust upon us long before our parents and grandparents hit the beaches of Normandy. The problem was already festering and has grown with each new generation.

Americans are used to crisis management. Our country was founded upon it. When it comes down to it we Americans always find a way and we always come out stronger for it.

Yeah I love your optimism. :rolleyes: We'll just figure it out, great. Excellent. As long as you get yours.

Jerry Sanders (mayor of San Diego) was just on FoxNews, refreshing to hear someone from his generation talk about the defined benefit ponzi scheme.

Manhattan Buckeye;1191657 wrote:Jerry Sanders (mayor of San Diego) was just on FoxNews, refreshing to hear someone from his generation talk about the defined benefit ponzi scheme.

It bankrupted Chrysler and GM. It's bankrupting many states. The only thing that will stop it from bankrupting the US is some other profligate, unfunded spending beats it to the punch

HitsRus;1191215 wrote:I am tired of class warfare, gender warfare, ethnic warfare, and generational warfare.

I'm tired of warfare against common sense and fiscal responsibility. I don't blame any one generation, but I do blame a mentality.

And no, just because we Americans have overcome multiple crises in our past does not give us an automatic pass to overcome future crises. Societies do unravel and crumble because of a refusal to face a crisis in favor of endless can-kicking down the road. The proverbial can cannot be kicked forever.

I can remember the D's and statists on this board thoroughly disgusted that anyone call Barry a socialist. Now, there's evidence that he joined a socialist party in 1996 - http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302031/obamas-third-party-history-stanley-kurtz?pg=1

Some pull-quotes:

On the evening of January 11, 1996, while Mitt Romney was in the final years of his run as the head of [COLOR=#216221 !important][COLOR=#216221 !important]Bain [COLOR=#216221 !important]Capital[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR], Barack Obama formally joined the New Party, which was deeply hostile to the mainstream of the Democratic party and even to American capitalism. In 2008, candidate Obama deceived the American public about his potentially damaging tie to this third party. The issue remains as fresh as today’s headlines, as Romney argues that Obama is trying to move the United States toward European-style social democracy, which was precisely the New Party’s goal.

Minutes of the meeting on January 11, 1996, of the New Party’s Chicago chapter read as follows: [INDENT]Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party “Candidate Contract” and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.
[/INDENT]Consistent with this, a roster of the Chicago chapter of the New Party from early 1997 lists Obama as a member, with January 11, 1996, indicated as the date he joined.

The documents reveal that the New Party’s central aim was to move the United States steadily closer to European social democracy, a goal that [COLOR=#216221 !important][COLOR=#216221 !important]Mitt [COLOR=#216221 !important]Romney[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] has also attributed to Obama. New Party leaders disdained mainstream Democrats, considering them tools of business, and promised instead to create a partnership between [COLOR=#216221 !important][COLOR=#216221 !important]elected [COLOR=#216221 !important]officials[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] and local community organizations, with the goal of socializing the American economy to an unprecedented degree.
The party’s official “statement of principles,” which candidates seeking endorsement from the Chicago chapter were asked to support, called for a &#8220eaceful revolution” and included redistributive proposals substantially to the left of the Democratic party.
To get a sense of the ideology at play, consider that the meeting at which Obama joined the party opened with the announcement of a forthcoming event featuring the prominent socialist activist Frances Fox Piven. The Chicago New Party sponsored a luncheon with Michael Moore that same year.

While it's perfectly acceptable to call oneself a socialist, to lie to Americans in order to be elected and hide whom you really are is not.

The bigger problem with European-style socialism is you have to pay for it and we don't. And Europe's historically anemic growth can be attributed to the crushing taxes that go with that system. And the US, like most any economy (with a few exceptions), is still largely consumer driven. So when you dictate consumption choices - i.e. SS, healthcare, etc... - you are by default dictating the structure of the economy. When half your money goes to choices dictated by the govt, well that doesn't really sound so appealing, does it? Worse, still, since we are basically not paying/funding these programs many are being forced to buy something they are never going to receive.

The other problem to "sell" this "Utopia" is really a hijacking of the debate. Yes, our healthcare is too expensive and the ROI isn't great (the US basically subsidizes global healthcare, more on that in a minute). But if you look at Europe, we have much lower energy prices. We have lower housing prices and interest rates. Yes, we subsidize global military, also. But there's a give and take here and exchange of subsidies, and if we could quantify it I suspect the US comes out a net gainer (which would be expected as a global military and economic power).

So what we are left with is misguided solutions to problems we don't truly have. The growing wealth gap (which is global) is really a non-starter for me - I don't care about my % slice of the pie, only how much pie I get. What I see is the govt taking bigger and bigger slices of the pie, and then blaming the size of my piece on the chef.

[INDENT]Yeah I love your optimism. :rolleyes: We'll just figure it out, great. Excellent. As long as you get yours. [/INDENT]

After 2034 SSI will be only able to pay 78% of retirement benefits according to the contract....that is the money taken out in payroll tax under the current rules of the system. At that point, it becomes a "pay as you go" system.

HitsRus;1192064 wrote:After 2034 SSI will be only able to pay 78% of retirement benefits according to the contract....that is the money taken out in payroll tax under the current rules of the system. At that point, it becomes a "pay as you go" system.

I don't think you are understanding that SSI is only a small piece of the puzzle. I also don't think you understand how much 100 trillion dollars is; nothing else matters if you cannot grasp these 2 concepts and rely on op-eds in the WSJ to form your opinion.

By the way, that 2034 projection was 2042 just 3 years ago. It'll be 2020 before you know it and you can take that to the bank.

And in other news Goerge W Bush wins a recent poll in a landslide as the worst living president.....a full 7% worse the the much hated Georgia peanut farmer. Pinnochio checked in at 43% thumbs up....compared to Slick Willey's 67% approval rating. The thousands and thousands of postings regarding the horror show of the current president as demonstrated on this thread pales in comparison to Pinnochio and his destruction of the country.

Footwedge;1192228 wrote:And in other news Goerge W Bush wins a recent poll in a landslide as the worst living president.....a full 7% worse the the much hated Georgia peanut farmer. Pinnochio checked in at 43% thumbs up....compared to Slick Willey's 67% approval rating. The thousands and thousands of postings regarding the horror show of the current president as demonstrated on this thread pales in comparison to Pinnochio and his destruction of the country.

Really a remarkable accomplishment for Obama - let's not set the bar too high. But we'll see what 4 years of being blamed by his successor will do to the current perception.