[…] rebuild the (zen) kernel with those Security options Thank you for the help. Sincerely, Gour Comment by Gour - February 28, 2008 @ 6:06 pm np Comment by gianvito - February 28, 2008 @ 6:32 pm Rebuilding the Kernel […]

Yes, there are safe investments but people will invest in risky, supposedly high yield, vehicles because of greed. Many will be caught with their pants down and no safety net.

It’s also why the SS collection age was set originally to 65… at a time when the male life expectancy was 61.

Yes again. Politicians making our money work for our benefit. Business as usual…… Their raising the age to 65 did more to extend life expectancy than many national health plans. It required people to live longer by shear determination so they could get their money back.

This is a fallacy often promoted by opponents of privatization. Nobody is saying people have to create stock accounts. Money can be invested in very safe mutual funds, money markets or other federally protected savings accounts that will return double what social security currently returns.

“Social Security was to be for retirement but is used for everyone, from cradle to grave.”

Actually, social security was established as a “widow’s fund” to help protect homemaking women whose husbands died before they collected retirement or pensions from their employers. It was created during a period when most women did not work and was supposed to take care of those women who lost their breadwinners. That’s why the ponzi scheme was set up (where current payments in are not set aside for the payor to retrieve later, but rather are immediately paid out to recipients - with an IOU sitting in the account for the current payors to receive from later). It’s also why the SS collection age was set originally to 65… at a time when the male life expectancy was 61. It was designed so almost nobody would ever collect… unless the situation was dire enough.

But you are right when you talk about how its scope has expanded well beyond the initial intent… or the viability of the program.

We have millions of “legal” Americans doing “under the counter” work so giving these illegals citizenship will not help our bottomline or change the way they make money to send back to their homeland.

I’d rather pay the cheaper wage today and invest the difference in my own private account that has two benefits over SS:

1) I own it and can pass it down if I die
2) Even a novice investor can earn a better return than SS

Many Americans loose Millions of dollars, if not billions, when stock market crashes and incestors couldn’t stop it. Ask many retired Americans right now how they like living on SS because they lost their private investments. SS is loosing money because our elected officials give it away to every needy person includeing illegal aliens but investors are still getting paid. When you get old, sick and need help, the first place you will turn is to your government. They will have nothing because you gave them nothing. Social Security was to be for retirement but is used for everyone, from cradle to grave.

America cannot absorb the millions that steal across our borders without a culture change. These illegals come from 3rd world cultures. We will become one of the worlds richest third world countries.

It is time Americans show our elected officials how to do do what they were sworn into office to do ….. protect America’s borders.

On the social security side, it seems to be a zero sum game. If they have to report earnings, their prices will go up. Any potential future SS receipts would be offset by current higher prices for services. Frankly, I’d rather pay the cheaper wage today and invest the difference in my own private account that has two benefits over SS:

1) I own it and can pass it down if I die
2) Even a novice investor can earn a better return than SS

I have a solution that will kill two birds with one stone. Politicians (dem and rep) have been whining for years about how the social security system will be bankrupt by the year 20XX (insert your moving target based on political agenda here) and that we need more workers in the system to balance the books. Well here are 12-20 million workers, the vast majority of which are hard working, decent people. Why don’t we just get those hard working people on the books and have them start paying social security / taxes?

Tens of thousands of them have cash only, service based businesses that make a bundle from American’s willing make their dollar go further for service conveniences. The only way you’re going to put that money on the table is to offer them a path to naturalization. Otherwise, we’ll continue to undermine the labor work force with labor below minimum wage, never have a shot at that tax revenue and these people will continue to live in the shadows till the end of time.

It is always the Americans that are ‘vigilantes’ for wanting to enforce our border security, at least at the State level, we have yet to really see anything of enforcement at the Federal level.