Paper on Social Security

Today, we as Americans expect, for the most part, that Social Security will not be around in the next fifteen years. It is true that we need to look into fixing some of the long term issues now rather than later. Should we privatize Social Security as several people including President Bush and others want to do with the expectation that the American people can manage theirr own money? We willl look at that from another view point. Social Security is only a small retirement help. It was never made to support people, just to aid in retirement. The fact is that while we as Americans have gotten use to having Social Security, we cannot control it like we want to. The IRS mandates what we can and cannot do with our retirement money as well as the Social Security. Yes, the American government has borrowed from the Social Security fund, aand it has given it's word that it will pay it back. Now we have a problem on all counts. We have been raised not to trust the government that we live under or we have been raised to follow it as sheep and fully trust the government. Let's take a look at both privatization and Social Security and how they work.
Consider privatization of Social Security as a bucket of water trying to put out the common fire. It is more like taking a bucket of gas and hoping to not blow yourself up. This being said, I wish for you to understand that if you take into account what a dollar is worth now compared to a dollar of even twenty-five years ago, Social Security has made no money and neither has the stock market. There is only so much money in the world. You can spread out the peanut butter so far, and you can add only so much water to the kool-aid before it is only colored water. Yes, Social Security is needed and so is retirement savings. Yyou need to look at the numbers as your Presidents and Ccongress and even some economists would want do. There is inflation that makes that gains not go anywhere, but that is another part of Social Security.
Social Security is the most successful and most looked at system in the world. People from all over the world try to imitate it. Ppeople have tried to make it better. There are many ways that Social Security can be seen as a way for the government of the United States to just get more of our money. It is for the disabled, the orphaned, the sick, and the people who cannot live by their own means physically and mentally. It was designed to take care of those that could not take care of themselves. If we as Americans try to privatize Social Security, we must also take care of those that are in need.
There are churches, synagogues, and even groups of rich people who give theirr time and energy to the effort of taking care of people, but not like social security does. It is there right now for working and non-working Americans to take advantage of. If I were to die today, my wife would be able to have some income. She would get some money to help bury me in the ground. It would not cover all funeral expenses.
Social Security was not made to live off of. It is not a cure in my opinion. I have to save some of my money that I make to retire, in a pension plan, or a 401k, or IRA's . Mmost of the problem is not that the government does not want you to have one of these and Social Security. It is the government itself through the IRS that makes the rules for Social Security and the privatizing of Social Security so difficult. Every part of the government wants a piece of the money pie. While money is what we need to have at old age, jjust think of what our parents and even our teacher can say about money in their lifetime.
A can of coke in nineteen seventy eight cost twenty-five cents or less. At the same store it now ccosts sixty-five cents. Some things such as gas cost in nineteen seventy eight cost about sixty-five cents a gallon. Nnow that same gas is about two dollars and ninety-seven cents at the same station. So what is the Social Security that is based on nineteen eighty-one's money really worth today? Not a whole lot. If you think living off just Social Security is a thing you can do.
Llook at old people who are trying to live off Social Security alone. It is a scary thing to look at someone who worked all their life to save only enough to take care of their problems with nineteen-seventy-eight money or invested their money in a stock market or even in a 401k and lost a lot of money through inflation and loss of funds to other people. At least with Social Security you can have some money. Privatizing it can make some people have more money and some people have less. It is a way to get more money into the economy but at a cost in the future to people who cannot even use a credit card and pay bills on time. Yes, there are those who do and can pay, but for the majority it would be an added task of trying to figure out what to invest their money in, or pay someone else money to invest in something that they might lose.
Look at the stock market and the Social Security system. Yes, the government has taken money out of the pot to pay for some things other than Social Security, but it is going to have to pay back that money soon. We are going to have to either invest in Social Security or invest in privatizing Social Security. Eeither way we as the children of the 60's ,70's ,80's, 90's and even that of the new century must fix a complex problem caused by our parents and grandparents. We will have to learn to invest for the future and expect that our government will invest in our future by privatizing the system. These are the same people who privatized Medicare, and I personally think it is now a mess. The same people who have contracted out government jobs because it is cheaper are doing the same to our parents and grandparents. Old age is coming fast. Ppeople who are thinking of looking at the same problems of Social Security are thinking about it the way college students think about math. We have to look deep to see the real issues at hand. We are the people it will hurt the most. We are the generation that has to support the aging population. We are going to have to make the decisions of fixing a hurting system that the rest of the world has tried to imitate. This could be the worst mistake the people of America have let Ccongress and President ever make.
I do not believe in giving people money for free. But I do not think it is right for people not to have money because they cannot work. Privatization of a social system would break the old and young. The government of the United States is going to have to accept that we are not all educated about the way government works. We are in a sense slaves to Democracy. We vote to have a voice, we want it fixed, but we do not want Social Security to become a old car that is crushed and made into something new. We want it fixed in a way that is beneficial to all, both young and old. We complain about money. Bbut if we do not give more money to Social Security we most certainly must start giving more money to ourselves. To do so will mean that the government will want to stick its hands into our savings just as it has with Social Security.
Yes the government will get its' money somehow. It can be truthful and upfront or it can lie and say it is okay. We as educated people know that the system is broken. Does it make sense to us to ddestroy a system that the world thinks is good? I do not think we know what it is like to live in America. We are a country that cares a little for the old, disabled, fatherless, and widowed through the system of Social Security.
Now, let's look at the facts as I have pulled them from books and off line. Social Security was never supposed to benefit everyone. It is a supplement used to help in retirement. It isn't enough for old people to live on. The government was not supposed to plan out retirement for the population of America. It did over the years put itself into that position by saying it over and over, iff you want to retire, let us have more and more of your money. We as Americans and business owners give the government money to help pay for retirement through Social Security.
Now, not everyone gives to this retirement pool. Some states, federal employees, and others do not have to, and have decided that they would manage their retirement. Some good and some bad things have happened over the years. Pension plans were stolen, companies closed and that really hurt the plans. Nnow are we to put our money into a privatized Social Security plan? At the time, President Bush wanted to try to pass a law that would cost a lot more to have than a regular 401k plan.
Wwhy do we think that as Americans we can save better than the government? I do not think that I made any money in the last two years on my 401k plan. In fact, I lost eight percent of the money I invested into the plan. I made more money paying back a loan to my 401k than I did in playing the stock market. It would be better to go to the boats in Vicksburg and put my little nest egg into a machine, than plan to make money from the stock market. The goals of saving are to have money and make a little extra money to have when I reach old age. This is a long way from becoming reality.
Think of the privatization of Social Security as a big jar with your own money put into it. Everyone is going to have access to it. Some will want to put money into it. But most will want to take money out and not repay you. The government of the United States has made promises of repayment for the Social Security funds by using bonds and other things. It is going to hurt us as a nation to pay back the money borrowed, but it will not kill us because we will have more money available as the older population dies. I hate to say this, but it is true that old people have a large majority of the money and younger people do not. The same people who service these older people with their skills today will be the people who will have the money in the future.
Privatizing will hurt our old now and us as a people in the future. I do not believe that Social Security is the same as it was fifty years ago. We had churches and other institutions that looked after our poor in ways we could only dream about these days. Wwhy would be wanted to put a bandage on something that is in need of repair? It is better to fix the problem within a car sometimes than to replace the car.
Old, young, and you or I could need Social Security well before retirement and privatizing of Social Security gives us nothing. No security, no help if it does not work, and it greatly hurts the same people that Social Security was made to help. It is not a fair balance of money. If you work all your life and you only get a little of what you put in you might find it unfair. If you worked all your life and find that you are living better than you were you would think this was a great thing.
So, how can we as a people think that taking a system of government that works better than that of most of the others and moving it to a private company or companies will make it better? The cost would be out of this world. The effects now and later would cripple both the economy and the welfare of the people it was meant to help. Without exception, we must as citizens look at the whole picture of government and decide what needs to be fixed. The whole idea with Social Security was to help in a time of great need. That need has not changed. So we must continue as a nation to support our people with programs. We need to expect our government to do what is right and Constitutional and start fixing the problems with a system that is workable instead of saying it is big.
We have a big nation, with a population smaller than China and India, and larger than other countries. If we as a nation work until we are eighty-five or ninety years old we will still have to take responsibility in caring for those who cannot care for themselves. It is a morality issue more than a money issue that we must deal with. Someone will have to step forward and either fix the problem or destroy the issue at hand. There are lots of organizations who promise the world of privatized Social Security, but it all comes down to money. Do you want to pay and possibly lose your money to the poker system of the stock market? Or, would you be better off trusting the government of our nation to have some or all of your savings? What if you knew that was as safe as keeping it in your wallet. Do you think maybe we should fix the other issues with savings and have both private savings to retire on and Social Security as a way to retire when you get old? I think I would like to save my own money and have the government supply me with the money that I saved with them, rather than trust solely in myself, an educated man.




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