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Topic: Retirement / What am I working for?
(Read 6638 times)

847badgerfan · « **Reply #168 on:** **Today** at 09:51:22 AM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on Today at 09:41:28 AM

I would just reprocess waste water, maybe they do it. A waste treatment plant can produce potable water at some additional expense (tertiary).

I know they lose a lot to evaporation and leakage.

They do some, for irrigation, and more recently (10 years or so), they use reclaimed water for flushing toilets. Adds a lot to the construction costs (double the pipe/install), but there is not much of a choice to be made out there.

And yes, there are losses.

One of my friends lived in this development until he moved to Palm Beach Gardens. Lots and lots of loss potential in that pond. There are thousands more like it out there.

My MIL lives here:

Cincydawg · « **Reply #169 on:** **Today** at 11:42:24 AM »

As Social Security faces insolvency, these are key factors to watch (cnbc.com)

847badgerfan · « **Reply #170 on:** **Today** at 12:02:00 PM »

Quote from: 847badgerfan on Today at 11:56:04 AM

It's obvious that spending needs to be cut. Where?

How about defense?

How about not forgiving massive debts?

Wasteful Government agencies. Pick from this list:

A-Z index of U.S. government departments and agencies | USAGov

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It's also obvious that revenues need to go up. I'd like to see a feasible plan to achieve this.

A larger contribution to Medicare and Social Security would help.

A 0.8 percent increase on SS, from 6.2 to 7 percent (14 percent total).

Take Medicare from 1.45 to 2 percent (4 percent total).

Then there is all this BS on taxing the wealthy more. Show me how and show me why.

Higher corporate taxes? If your goal is to cut jobs, have at it. I don't condone this at all.

We need more jobs, which leads to more people paying taxes. Duh.

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #171 on:** **Today** at 12:54:42 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on Today at 11:42:24 AM

As Social Security faces insolvency, these are key factors to watch (cnbc.com)

At which point I have to mention, yet again and as always, that Social Security is ALREADY insolvent. It now, and has for several years, been paying out more money than it takes in.

The SSTF, is not an account full of "money" that the SSTF can draw from to pay their shortages. It's full of promises to print or tax money and give it to the Social Security program to meet its obligations.

The Social Security Trust Fund is, and always has been, a bullshit setup that is used to fool Americans into thinking the system's structural problems are farther down the road than now.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #172 on:** **Today** at 01:00:14 PM »

I think the SSTF is a real thing, personally. They invest in special T bills just like other people and corporations, and that "money" there has real value.

They have no authority to borrow.

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #173 on:** **Today** at 02:16:36 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on Today at 01:00:14 PM

I think the SSTF is a real thing, personally. They invest in special T bills just like other people and corporations, and that "money" there has real value.

They have no authority to borrow.

It's a "real thing", sure. It contains Treasury Bills.

But again, that's just a promise that the Treasury will either print money (i.e. sell T Bills to other investors and use the funds to repay SS) or will tax Americans for the money to repay SS.

It's a pretty damn good promise, of course. I believe the special T Bills that are issued to the SSTF are possibly the most senior debt that the entire government has?

But it's still just a promise to raise money to pay it back, not an actual pile of money.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #174 on:** **Today** at 02:20:35 PM »

There aren't many actual piles of money anywhere, certainly not trillions. It's all invested in something.

And dollar bills are not more substantial than Treasury bills.

Insolvent, to me, means they can't pay current bills, and they can, and do. But I suppose all this is just terminology. The main thing is they can still pay about 75% of their obligations even if nothing is done, and nearly everyone expects Congress to "do something" somewhere along the line.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #175 on:** **Today** at 02:22:30 PM »

I bought my first stock in 1978, 30 shares of Abbott Labs. I got the actual script at the time, a fancy piece of paper saying I owned it. Now of course is all somewhere in the interwebz.

Most of my bills comes as emails, and I schlepp "money" to pay them using the interwebz. I never see a dime of it.

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #176 on:** **Today** at 02:52:46 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on Today at 02:20:35 PM

There aren't many actual piles of money anywhere, certainly not trillions. It's all invested in something.

And dollar bills are not more substantial than Treasury bills.

Insolvent, to me, means they can't pay current bills, and they can, and do. But I suppose all this is just terminology. The main thing is they can still pay about 75% of their obligations even if nothing is done, and nearly everyone expects Congress to "do something" somewhere along the line.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "insolvent". I retract that.

Think of the government as a large conglomerate company like GE. It has revenues and costs. One division of the company (let's say GE Healthcare) is profitable while another division (let's say GE Aerospace) is not.

What you're talking about here is GE Healthcare using its profits to buy bonds from the GE corporate entity, and then the GE corporate entity using that money to fund GE Aerospace's obligations. That money has been spent.

As time passes, business conditions for GE Healthcare sour and now they want to cash in on those bonds. Where does GE corporate get the money? Either from raiding other profitable divisions or having to run hat in hand to the equity markets. But they're all under one stock ticker, so either option is a negative for the corporation as a whole.

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In the case of SS, all of those "excess" contributions that were turned into T Bills and put into the SSTF have been spent by the government. To repay those T Bills, they have to either borrow more money or raise taxes on Americans. Either they're going to continue ballooning the national debt, or it comes out of OUR pockets.

I'm not saying it won't be paid back. I'm saying that paying it back is choosing between two bad options.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #177 on:** **Today** at 02:57:05 PM »

Again, we really agree aside from some terminology of no real import.

So long as the government can borrow as it does huge amounts with relatively little problem, it will. And when it can no longer do so, well, it'll be largely over.

I don't see any viable solution or prospect of real change. Elected officials who really started to do what is needed would be quickly voted out of office.

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #178 on:** **Today** at 03:21:01 PM »

Quote from: Cincydawg on Today at 02:57:05 PM

Again, we really agree aside from some terminology of no real import.

So long as the government can borrow as it does huge amounts with relatively little problem, it will. And when it can no longer do so, well, it'll be largely over.

I don't see any viable solution or prospect of real change. Elected officials who really started to do what is needed would be quickly voted out of office.

Right.

But do you understand what I'm saying not about how the system works, but how the system was designed to fool voters? Even naming it the "Social Security Trust Fund" gives off a certain idea, a "trust fund" being some large account that you've squared away to draw on. It's designed to make voters think that Social Security has actually been saving money for several decades, and now "someone" will pay it back to the program.

But who pays it back is us.

That money was never saved. It was lent to the rest of the federal government and spent. Over decades. Essentially to make people think that income taxes didn't need to be as high as they actually needed to be for the government to spend what it was spending. Now we have to cover deficit spending every single year both for Social Security *AND* for everything else, and people wonder why our deficit is so high! It's because we were effectively hiding some spending by using the Social Security excess contributions to float the other stuff. We kicked the can down the road to when we knew the demographics for SS would be shit, and now they're shit, but we're STILL kicking the can saying everythings hunky-dory and will only be a problem in 2035 when the SSTF is exhausted.

It's not "going to be" a problem in 2035. It's a damn problem NOW.

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Topic: Retirement / What am I working for?

847badgerfan

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

Cincydawg

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

847badgerfan

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

Cincydawg

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

Cincydawg

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

Cincydawg

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

Cincydawg

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Retirement / What am I working for?