quote:

Whether a particular government program is justifiable is a different question. I believe the Social Security retirement program is doomed to failure, and needs to be tailed off before it collapses with severe consequences.

I said I was out and now I got pulled back in. But I suspect I am going to surprise some people by agreeing with Fly-Sig. First I appreciate very much his comment and analogy regarding the fire department. Thank You. Second, I don't know if many of you remember, but during President Bush's first term, he floated a trial balloon suggesting that people could put a portion of their SSA taxes into a private account that they could manage themselves. I thought it was a great idea. Once it started, if people liked it, you could build the political capital to get legislation to put a higher percentage of your taxes into this private account. It would at least be a start. What happened? Bush was carpet bombed with allegations that he was trying to end social security and enrich all of his buddies on wall street. So the proposal went no where. I thought it was a great tragedy.

Fly-Sig is right that Social Security is going to fall off a cliff. Nobody seems to be talking about it (in either party).

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
Fed161,
Thanks for taking the time to explain so much of the SSA's work. I am sure there is fraud, but the SSA appears to be relatively efficient.

+1

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
There are 6.5 million more people than our population on SS roles ranging from 112 YO to 375 years old. Doge reported, and announced on Andrew Wilkow patriot Channel Sirius XM.

Hahahahaha. So by your logic, when we started issuing social security numbers, there were 275 year old people that signed up?

Oh my.

Silly boy! This is the data discovered, so I would think birth years were incorrectly entered. And NO it is NOT my "Logic"

Rooting out the waste and fraud in SS would go a long way towards shoring it up.

@Fly-Sig: Fire Departments are a great example of good civic investment - I don’t know if they meet the rent seeker standard, though.

Myrtle Beach SC, for all of its many flaws, has had a policy of keeping the highest rated standard of fire departments, because the insurance companies drop insurance rates more than it costs the citizens to pay for that level of fire department. (Not sure if that is in English. I might try again later. Joys of a 3 week old baby and resultant sleep deprivation.)

Similarly, normal navies don’t net profits, but they promote trade/discourage invasion, etc.

Courts provide a means for commerce to be conducted/contract enforcement.

City streets/sanitation departments would be almost impossible to move to the private sector.

Disease mitigation/vaccines/some forms of basic research can dramatically improve the human experience, but are difficult to monetize.

I posted this in another thread; Fed161, you are obviously very knowledgeable, so please comment!

After doing a little research on average SS Payments of about $24,000 per year per person and some 60 million getting payments, then the total annual payout should be around $1.3 Trillion.

Both Google and DuckDuckGo indicate payout of a bit over $1.5 Trillion, leaving about $300+ Billion unaccounted for… or something over
$25 billion per month.

A Billion here and a Billion there can add up to some real money!!

Please note… to count to over ten, I need to take off my shoes and socks. I ask that Forum Members check my math and give your opinions.

That's easily accounted for in the "about" $24k and "about" 60M.

Those aren't exact figures, and rounding/approximating at that scale (tens of millions of people and trillions of dollars) will necessarily result in discrepancy from the actual exact numbers.

If it were exactly $24k per person, that'd be 62.5M people.

Or if it were exactly 60M, that'd be $25k per person.

Or split the difference and it'd be $24,489 per person to 61.25M people.

But "around" $24k and "around" 60 million works if you're just looking for roughly approximated round numbers, which reporters and PR folks love so that's what makes the press releases, social media blurbs, and sound bites.

We'd need to know the exact amount and exact number of people before being able to claim that there was hundreds of billions of dollars missing there.

An anecdote… my wife (at the time) and I graduated FSU in 1968. I had a BS in Biology, she received her PhD in philosophy.

She took a job in the local Social Security office. She had an eidetic memory and knew the regulations inside out.

I do not recall the details, but she denied a claim and the applicant threw a fit! The site manager over-rode her denial and wrote her up for following the rules; told her that the main goal was to avoid complaints! She resigned that day.

Old news… of course, and anecdotal. However, over the years, I had personal similar experiences as well as hearing from friends in similar situations, even as of this year.

I think the worker bees truly try to do a good job, but the issues are top down.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
We are clearly better off for having a fire department though there is arguably a net drain on the citizen's monetary wealth.

Maybe for some citizens. As someone whose entire property, home, and orchards would have burned if not for fire fighting resources, my personal wealth is probably greater for them being there.

As someone who was eight years old when my father passed away, leaving my Mom with six children, it is possible that if not for the SSA survivor’s benefits things would have turned out very differently.

It seems to me like there are two separate pieces to the puzzle: Should the government be doing a certain thing? And, separately, Is the government doing a good job of doing that thing?

Personally, I’ll wait to see all of what DOGE finds at SSA before getting too excited about it.

I recall Diane Feinstein's husband getting an inside track to purchase USPS buildings and then re-leasing or selling them for a substantial profit.


I found this on line:
https://www.onecitizenspeaking...nment-contracts.html

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wall Street Apes above

This is getting tiresome. This is an absolute pile of total utter bull shit. I'm not going to waste my time responding to every pile of internet bull shit I see. No offense at all to HRK. You saw an interesting provocative item and you posted it. I have no problem with that. But it's utter bullshit.

First use a little bit of logic. If this was actually happening, don't you think that Fox News, Newsmax and other conservative outlets would have done stories on this by now? Why haven't they? I'll tell you why. Because it's bull shit. Why haven't any Conservative Senators or Congressmen screamed bloody murder about this? Why? Because it's bull shit. Why wouldn't this "whistleblower" take this somewhere where it would do some good if it were true. Fox News.
Law enforcement. Her Congressman etc.

Illegal aliens aren't eligible for anything from SSA. NOTHING. They can't even get a SS number. Should this have happened even once, this so called whistleblower should be reporting it to law enforcement. Or perhaps her congressional representative. Beyond the fact that illegals can't get SS numbers and DON'T qualify for ANY benefits, I know this is bull shit for several other reasons. This "whistleblower" doesn't identify herself, or even who she works for. So I don't know if she claims to work for SSA. If she made the claim that she worked for SSA, I would submit a referral to SSA OIG myself. But I know she doesn't work for SSA, because there is no such thing a LONG TERM DISABILITY. Doesn't exist. There is only SSA Disability. There is no separate category of "long term" disability. Anyone who works for SSA would never use that phrase. And she doesn't seem to even know how you qualify for disability medically. When I retired over 70% of all disability claims in NJ were medically denied because the severity or duration requirements weren't met. This "whistleblower" seems to suggest that the aliens mere allegation of medical problems would be enough to qualify them for the social benefits for life. Seemingly even with no medical evidence.

If you want to believe this BULLSHIT - be my guest. I think there is nothing I could say that would convince you otherwise. I don't plan on responding to every bullshit item I see.

Sooo, to summarize, it could be happening, but it's probably rare.

That’s pretty clear indication of his opinion. My son would have said, “That’s not even bullshit, that’s horseshit.”

The guy with "Fed" in his name doesn't like what's going on with the federal government with all this craziness that Musk is uncovering?

Office Space was a funny movie. This thread started with office space in the title, so

"I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire"

https://moneyinc.com/heres-how...ity/#google_vignette

"Technically the government owes the Social Security fund an estimated $2.9 trillion, money that has been used and not repaid to the fund."

In most cases Fed161 appears to know what he’s talking about.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
The guy with "Fed" in his name doesn't like what's going on with the federal government with all this craziness that Musk is uncovering?

He had a career with the Social Security Administration. I'll wager he knows what he's talking about.