Oops! Social Security actually has a long term surplus

Republicans can think, - - as long as you can fit it on a bumper sticker.
This will always be the handicap of progressive policy. It requires thought and the ability to visualize secondary effects of policy. It's just so much easier to "believe" than to reason. The conservatives have been conditioned to this very effectively in their religions. This is also why the religious community has gravitated to Republicans so completely.

Obama has upheld many of the same conservative fiscal policies you attach only to the "bad guys", this is a sub-party insurgency in our government. Party no longer matters, they must be judged on their actions, and their actions SCREAM bought and sold, copyright corporate puppet masters 2011.

Keep your eye on our Dem President and other blue dog Dems as well. They seem to be quite compliant to the Rethug's pressure. Note that Max Baucus and Kent Conrad always seem to end up on these committees, even tho they represent fewer people than live in many boroughs of New York City.

Because they are paid NOT to talk about it and to divert our attention to manufactured news of less import.

Did you happen to notice that Social Security is shown to have $22 Trillion more income than expense? The head of the CBO is a Republican Bush appointee, so this isn't a contrived number. We obviously have a problem that isn't going to be fixed by cuts alone, but the graph also makes it obvious that there is no long term deficit in Social Security alone.

Yeah, something's going on here.

Amazing that the video from CSpan is suddenly unavailable.
The video has gone missing from CSpan's linked web site. -As if CSpan were hiding something.

Actually, I believe they already took it, put it in the General Fund back during Reagan and Bush I, then pointed to the same general fund they just pumped up with SS $ and said, 'Gee, we have too much in there, we need to give it back, rich guys first!'

They left an IOU in our piggy bank long ago. That is why they are in a tizzy. A rather large bunch of boomers didn't die like they had hoped, we are about to retire and will come looking for them to make good on that IOU. Some of us might be a bit cranky and gruff with deadbeat pols and the Hoarder Class they have served too.

Seems likely the surplus is all on paper since it was tossed into General Fund long ago.

They basically have it anyway. Instead of controlling a fund or the program itself, the bastards just decided to control and manipulate the currency Social Security is denominated in. Very sneaky.

As Keynes himself said:

"By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.” – John Maynard Keynes

Wonderful!

You are exactly correct.

Touche!

"{{{{{groan}}}}}", hahaha. Thanks for the laugh.

So we've constructed a trust fund with no vehicle to access the funds when we need them. Only the Federal government could be that stupid.

I groan also. What got me, what with all the complaints about govt. having to much control by the tea baggers...then they push the govt. to the brink and if it hadn't been raised than Obama would invoke the 14th. (yes, he would have) and guess who gets to decide where the money goes? Geitner! Talk about control. Then they create a 12 man panel who have all the control. OMG. tightening govt. control.......what idiots.?

Thank you for clearing that up. Now if you could only appear on the Sunday morning talk shows and educate the masses, maybe we could have a legitimate discussion on the safety net.

Sandy, thanks once again! As the length of the "Berman Files" increases, so will those with egg on their face when the facts are presented! (+1)

Wouldn't intergovernmental debt need to be issued to pay off the Intra-governmental debt absent a surplus as those bonds mature? I don't see receipts outpacing outlays anytime soon. Do you?

I'll agree it's an easy fix, but we certainly don't have a quarter century to fix it.

I think I love you!

The retiree has been feeling the effects for decades. Your outlook is myopic at best.

thank you for the essay, i will copy the thing to use in a few weeks when "they" come back with the new lie about SS. Truth be told benefits could be raised. Cutting fica did not help things in that regard. The commission talked about means testing for the wealthy and "they" went after the commission. There already is means testing for the working poor, but the wealthy collect on a system they don't pay into. Its disgusting. I read the commission report and it all seemed reasonable. Social Security was only discussed in regard to the income level that doesn't pay in and still collects on it. That crap last week about SS disability going insolvent by 2017 realy pissed me off. You are correct, @ 46% of the "debt" is owed to ourselves from a govt. that collateralized it starting back with Reagan. Our treasury has to pay that money back(14th again.) The banks have us by the short hairs. Reagan should never have borrowed against the SS fund. And these same idiots talk about people mortgaging their house, over and over?

That is all a really great detailed breakdown. Thank you Sandy.

Let me just say one thing to really simplify this for folks. Those really Huge numbers that the media and politicians use to scare us that SS is going broke so we should turn it over to Wallstreet is all fraud.

The SS debt is simply the numbers that are carried on financial statements as debt because it is money that is owed to us by the government that has not been paid out. It is simple Accounting and nothing more. That money is there in the SS fund as Treasury bonds.

Sandy, this is great, an excellent detailed explanation how SS works. It's a shame the Dems. can't explain it to t he people the same way. They need your help.

I would only add one detail to your excellent posting.

In '83 Raygun's commission "fixed" Social Security, which was a pay as you go system to that point. My generation (boomers) was called upon to build the surplus and forgo retirement an additional two years to compensate for our greater numbers and longevity compared to the following generation. That is how we got the massive surplus fund in the first place. The "surplus" is a temporary measure meant only to accomplish this compensation. It is not an inherent part of the original system which shouldn't be considered "broken" as it is depleted, as it was designed to be depleted as boomers die off.

Since that time there has not been a discernible seismic shift in demographics that would imply that the fund needs to be continued beyond the point where boomers die off to balance the strain on the system. This doesn't necessarily mean the point where the last boomer collects his last check and dies, but just where our numbers come into balance with those paying in. And yet the numbers show that this balance won't be achieved as our parents generation had 4.5 contributors to every recipient and we will only have 3 such contributors paying into the system. It is even projected that the next generation will only have as few as 2 contributors for each beneficiary, although this projection is from those who are hawking for privatization.

Is the birth rate that low now? If so, how did we grow to the point of having 350 million in population with a higher percentage in the workforce than ever before? The answer isn't in the raw numbers of workers, but rather in the number of "contributions" to the fund. With a massive percentage of the GDP going to the top brackets more of it is escaping taxation into the fund with a $106k cutoff. The last three decades have also seen the emergence of some very creative compensation methods that are designed to avoid "all" taxation, not just FICA and Medicare. The percentage of income that escapes the tax couldn't be imagined by the architects of the program, or even the commission that "fixed" it last time.

In "fixing" Social Security, again, we should look to a fair and equitable system that captures this vast untaxed income stream that has become a sub (sub is probably a misnomer) economy within the larger economy of the US. Doing so might just give us an insight into how best to solve the separate and greater problem of the general financing of government. The key to this is going to be honest brokers advocating for American workers in the process. I certainly don't see this present in our current two party political system, and definitely not in the "super congress" now charged with this task.

The way COLA adjustments have been tied to BLS statistics that do not mirror reality. The purchasing power of Social Security payments have been manipulated via the currency they are denominated in. This has been effecting retirees for years, and it's about to get worse with the renewed push for chained CPI calculations to be used.

Because they own the Mass media outlets??

I see you don't live on a s.s. check. Those of us that do are having a hard time right now and every little drop in the bucket matters to us.

and i havent had a raise in five years so whats your point?

so maybe you should ask for one.

Despite the high cost of living, have you noticed how it remains ever popular?

You forgot the Hate hate and more hate

I thought the same thing till I woke up one day and could not get out of bed. Then when I did get out of bed and got to work I could not get out of my jeep. I wish you a long and healthy life but shit happens. remember that bike crash??

Stay young for as long as possible KB! Being old and on SS isn't the party they make it out to be! Without it. many would be moving into one room cardboard castles and eating expired dog treats!

Social Security should be privatized for the benefit of the people not the government. The government holding your money is not a good deal. Secure investments are a better deal than the government regardless of how low the interest rate may be.

No one in their right mind would trust that money to the banksters. How much money did people lose in this crisis? A third? Some as much as a half. The same banksters are trying to get the regulations removed that would prevent them from risking the money again. Give me US Treasuries where SS is already invested. Backed by the "Full faith and credit of the US Government". (At least as long as the tea baggers stay away from it). In the entire history of SS, not a single dime has been lost. Much will be lost with these banksters.

Thank you, lazlo.

No way man are you smoking crack?? That is the worst thing they could do.

They hate anything that works for the People

That's correct, bailey.

Do you understand what is a secure investment?

Do you understand what is a secure investment?

yes as a matter of fact I do. The system that is in place now has been working for a long time. So if it's not broke don't fix it.

And the money wasn't really lost. It just ended up in someone else's pocket.

I sold securities back in the 80's. I know nothing that comes out of Wall Street is secure. Unless of course someone like George Bush chooses to give them our tax money to cover the bets they placed with our money.

And obama is trying to help them

I can't argue with that, wtthfkovr.

Surprisingly I trust the crooks in DC more than I trust the ones on Wall St..

I can't speak for bailey but there is NO such thing as a "secure" investment. ANYTHING can devalue and go belly up. Most of us grew up hearing how real estate is where you put your money because property never loses it's value. As we have ALL learned over the last 10 years that just aint so!

Since Uncle Sam is far more stable than Wall St. over the last 30 + years, what a shocker!, I'll stick with the Feds thank you.

The ROI on what the government takes from you compared to what you get back is atrocious. If you die before collect the government keeps your money. I would call this very broken.

Based on your response I can only figure you do not know what is a secure investment.

I can see you do not understand secure investments as well.

Where do you think those "secure investments" will place your money? They will pay close to 0 and make a "fee" as well. Why? Why not just place the money in Treasury certificates directly and allow the fund to collect the entire amount of interest with no fees? That's all the surplus is.

Real estate over the last 30 years has been a good investment as long as you don't borrow for it. Borrow for your home, not investments, as you will never beat the banker. If he could make more money in real estate than lending he would put his money there also instead of lending it to you.

Social Security is closer to an annuity than a direct investment. If one were to buy a guaranteed benefit annuity it would cost considerably more than SS collects, especially if it included survivor payout. If you ask the market to do what government does you have to add the profit overhead, as well as marketing and extravagant bonuses. There is no way a private business would touch administering such a program for the 2% overhead of Social Security. That's why the government uses SS to administer many programs that aren't actually associated to "retirement".

So who should get the money when you die??

"At some point we really need to jail the media for criminal misinformation"

You can say that again! Let me?

We really need to jail the media for criminal misinformation! The sooner the better!

I can't find one that works either??

I've searched and can't find it either. I'm going to drop a note at that website and see if they can point me somewhere.

Send me a link or post it if you find one that works. Something tells me that the powers that be are blocking or have paid to make it go away.

I have looked at a few places now none of them have a video. Strange VERY Strange.

I think you're spot on about that, but I'll keep looking.

Yes, very strange. I think they made it go away.

I'm sure someone has a copy of it but finding that person is going to be hard to do.