Quote:
Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Careful, Regan is listening.
I agree - their wealth/savings/whatever is their money, and they should be able to spend it on whatever they wish. But they should not be able to claim financial support from the rest of us because they want to do something else with that money besides than support themselves (whether that something else is buy toys byond their means, blow it on coke & whores, or leave it to their children).
My parents will be able to leave me more money because they will receive (very nice) SS benefits instead of having to spend their own money. That is nice for me, but still pisses me off a lot in principle. Reforming SS along what I consider to be fair lines would harm me personally rather a lot. It says something about the extent of my outrage that I still think it should be so reformed.
I usually think of "wealth" as "revenue producing capital assets." Having a lot of money, whatever the source, is being "rich." (I think this distinction in vocabulary may be more in my own mind than objective, but there it is.) People may have pensions and wealth, pensions that make them rich but not wealthy, pensions that just provide an adequate income, or pensions that don't. But whatever the source, if one has resources sufficient to make SS payments effectively a "lifestyle subsidy," it pisses me off. Basically, I'm of the opinion that if one can support oneself, whether the source is capital wealth, private pension income, earned income, or whatever, the G shouldn't be taking money earned by the rest of us to give it to you to subsidize either a ritzier lifestyle or wealth transfers to your offspring (though I don't think the G should be taking those, either, if you manage to create and/or preserve them). Not sure if that clears anything up, but there it is.
I tend to disapprove, in principle, of most forms of government welfare, but if there is to be welfare it should bloody well go to the poor.
* eta: this is not related to ltl's point, which, as she points out, is not exactly the companies' fault. But it also gets into technicalities of private pension finance about which I know nothing at all.
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Well, the money in SS is not welfare - it was earned by its receipients, so they should have the right to spend it as they like. Again, SS is not a govt fund for people - its govt giving people back their own money.
I don't agree that SS should be reformed to a "need based" program which you appear to advocate. That is an insidious form of wealth redistribution which would only serve to reward the irresponsible. If we follow Bush's privatization scheme, there will be armies of idiots losing their asses in the market and looking for pockets to pick later. The responsible should not be a crutch for idiots. This reason, among many others, makes me wonder why Bush would push for privatization. My cynical guess is he views privatization as the first step in a long GOP effort to undo SS entirely. Thats reckless, IMO. We need the program. Most of us are too goddamn stupid to be responsible for our retirement. I offer as evidence the mass of voters through the country who voted against their own economic interest this Fall. My second exhibit would be raw data on the lack of brains in this country. If you don't know simple geopgraphy or still believe Hussein was involved in 9/11, you probably don't have much investing acumen.
You're not losing money on this deal. If your folks don't need SS, the cash will trickle to you later. Any loss of the money from their spending on vacations and crap they don't need will be made up by the investment gains of their savings they're not using. You're just being impatient.
