Social Security

[Sean Hayden]

Is it an issue for all wealthy nations or are we the only country facing serious problems? If your country isn't facing a serious problem why not? If it is, what are y'all doing about it?

The problem: people live too long. There just isn't enough money. Maybe the problem is they don't take enough?

The solution so far seems to be to just continue to raise the retirement age. Is that all we can come up?

[Rum]

The pressures of an aging population seem to be an issue for all developed nations as the proportion of their populations over 60 continues to grow. The cost of health care and social security is growing even faster it seems. It makes up a huge proportion of spending here - over 40% of public spending.

Here where we have a history of state-supported social security and health care that has been established since the mid-1940s, it is not perhaps the issue that it is in the US of Sink or Swim Land. Even so, the issue of funding pensions for those who don't have private ones (most of us have two - a state and a private one )as well as the cost of keeping us alive longer risks breaking the backs of the increasingly small proportion of the population who are working and earning enough to pay taxes.

There is a lot of debate about the issue here these days - so yes it is an issue here. There is talk of a radical review of the taxation system so that assets as well as income might be taxed for example. That would mean that older people, who own most of the shit now, would be taxed rather more, at a certain level. I could personally support this, as I see young people of my daughter's age struggling to get a financial foothold established.

[Seabass]

Is it an issue for all wealthy nations or are we the only country facing serious problems? If your country isn't facing a serious problem why not? If it is, what are y'all doing about it?

The problem: people live too long. There just isn't enough money. Maybe the problem is they don't take enough?

The solution so far seems to be to just continue to raise the retirement age. Is that all we can come up?

Scrap the cap! The conservative arguments against removing the cap make no sense, IMO. The way I see it, if there is no cap on income, then there shouldn't be a cap on how much of that income is taxable. Of course, we'll end up with Republican "fixes" because American billionaires need more yachts and private jets, and they all need to be gold plated.

[pErvinalia]

You have a cap on how much income can be taxed?

[JimC]

In effect, so do we. The ultra wealthy and large corporations have the teams of lawyers and accountants that can so manipulate the tax laws to their advantage that they end up paying a fraction of what they should...

[Joe]

You have a cap on how much income can be taxed?

Not for the regular income tax, but for the Social Security tax, it's $128,400 for this year. This means the average CEO making $761,596 per year pays $7,960.80 toward Social Security, instead of $47,218.95 if there was no cap.

So while people making less than the cap pay a 6.2% rate for Social Security, the average CEO pays a shade over 1%.

[laklak]

Yeah the cap is ridiculous. If it's mandatory, of course. You should be able to opt out of SS completely, and opt back in if you so choose. What you get is based on what you've paid in, so you've no one to blame but yourself if you end up with bumpkiss when you retire. By the same token, there should be no upper limit to what you're paid, which is $3,680 a month in 2018, if you wait till you're 70 and tick all the relevant checkboxes. The average is under $1,400 a month, again 2018 figures. If you opt out that's it, you can starve.

[rainbow]

Is it an issue for all wealthy nations or are we the only country facing serious problems? If your country isn't facing a serious problem why not? If it is, what are y'all doing about it?

The problem: people live too long. There just isn't enough money. Maybe the problem is they don't take enough?

The solution so far seems to be to just continue to raise the retirement age. Is that all we can come up?

Encourage smoking and drinking.
No speed limits, no nanny-state laws to protect the stupid.
Less gun control.

[laklak]

So, move to Florida?

[cronus]

Money is the only thing there happens to be a potential infinite supply...yet human beings don't know how to deal it...the best guesses are to make too much or too little. How's that for a working theory, working out?

[Rum]

While it is true that money is created, if it isn't linked to value in some way then all you get is inflation. Most of the money in the system these days is in our banks and new money is created by the interest on loans for the most part - the banks make it from basically nothing at all. The government only plays a small part in creating money - about 3% of it in fact, when they look at 'aggregates'. You can't suddenly make all the people currently qualifying for social security rich. It doesn't work that way.

[Jason]

While it is true that money is created, if it isn't linked to value in some way then all you get is inflation. Most of the money in the system these days is in our banks and new money is created by the interest on loans for the most part - the banks make it from basically nothing at all. The government only plays a small part in creating money - about 3% of it in fact, when they look at 'aggregates'. You can't suddenly make all the people currently qualifying for social security rich. It doesn't work that way.

Since 1971, U.S. citizens have been able to utilize Federal Reserve Notes as the only form of money that for the first time had no currency with any gold or silver backing. This is where you get the saying that U.S. dollars are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. Government.

So is it the faith and credit of the U.S. Government that links the USD to value, or is it the value of the interest on the loans the banks hold?

[Rum]

I don't think you are referring to the same system. The so called 'gold standard' was dropped internationally a long time ago (1971?). Since then internationally the buying and selling of currency (again, a slightly different issue) has been mostly based on the US dollar, being traditionally the strongest of them all.

The 'money' that swishes around all countries nowadays (there may be a few exceptions) is for the most part what the banks create.

[Scot Dutchy]

Dont you pay "capital tax" in the UK? We do. On property you own. We have three boxes on our tax; box 1 is direct income on which income tax is paid. We dont have PAYE. Your employer takes income tax when paying wages. Any claims you have is filled in your tax returns. Box 2 is for income out of investments. Box 3 is capital including savings and property. So we do pay tax on what we own.

There are three areas where politics does not apply; health, education and social services.

[Rum]

There is 'capital gains tax' but you don't pay that if you sell your main home. You do if you own a house for renting out purposes or a second home though.

We pay tax on all income above a threshold. It is lumped together - income from your pay/pension and interest from savings is it more or less.

PAYE is another matter. 'Pay as you earn', which is an automated income tax payment system which is a lifesaver if you hate tax forms. Working in local government as I did one small perk was never having to fill one of those forms from hell in for the whole of my career. I tried to help my dad fill one in once and I despaired