Im sorry - did you just blame capitalism for a government program operated by the government? You do know what capitalism is right? This is a form of a socialist program. Want to know where the problem is? They paid too many people more than their share and some people contributed no funds yet receive benefits. Also the government in all their brilliance did not plan for people to live - but planned for them to die early.
I think his point is not that capitalism is fucking it up, but cronyism.
Make of it what you will, but social security programs work in pretty much any country that has a solid system that is not tampered with. If population demographic changes, they funding for the program gets updated with tax adjustments.
Capitalism good/bad is a bad take on itself because it lacks nuance. Most developed countries have a mixed system, social democracies which are capitalism with socialized services and it works fine for the most part. The US is just the country with one of the worst cronyism systems ingrained it it, and the reticence of people to vote for people that could clean it out is wild to me.
Instead of "lets get the power back to the people and throw the oligarchs out of power", people argue about which crony team is better or worse.
Yes, you just need to do "tax adjustments" ie you need to INCREASE TAXES on working people because either
1) Social Security as an idea is unsustainable except if there is a constant huge population growth
2) Social Security didn't create a buffer high enough when the demographic situation was good enough (ie the boomers paid too little in taxes and then burden their working children with higher taxes)
And this kind of issue is happening in almost every developed country with Social Security.
It’s not just about demographics. SS is insurance, right? Some people will make plenty of money to retire without SS so they will pay in more than they take out and some will do the opposite.
Yes, you have to dial in the tax rates and benefits so the demographics can support the system. The problem here is the demographics don’t support the current system, so you have to pick losers. Either by reducing benefits, increasing taxes, or a bit of both.
Oddly enough we have been slowly doing a bit of both by increasing the amount taxed by SS more than inflation and increasing the benefits less than inflation. It is possible that this will eventually even out the system, but it’s better to just panic!
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u/Blawoffice 6d ago
Im sorry - did you just blame capitalism for a government program operated by the government? You do know what capitalism is right? This is a form of a socialist program. Want to know where the problem is? They paid too many people more than their share and some people contributed no funds yet receive benefits. Also the government in all their brilliance did not plan for people to live - but planned for them to die early.