Social Security and Medicare are destroying America

[Fake Boris]

No country would be operating a fund on the same scale as the United States. Compound interest isn't magical, it requires worthwhile investment opportunities. Pump 2.5 trillion dollars into the market, have it administered by a bunch of GS-14s who have no incentive to outperform the market, and you'll wind up with a lot of waste, a lot of rich people getting richer, and a broke ass fund.

There's simply no excuse to impose a regressive tax that funds a boondoggle, when you could just let people invest their own money.

1) If you disagree with a tax because it's regressive, there's a much simpler solution than abolishing it: make it progressive.

2) Quebec's fund has had an annualized 8.4% since its inception in 1965 - including a write-off of $39.4B in the commercial paper crash.

http://www.lacaisse.com/fr/resultats/donnees-historiques

3) The American economy is large and complex enough that the fund could be segmented in hermetic departments.

[Zevico]

My understanding is that the notion that Social Security payments were in any sense anything other than a simple tax with a trumped up name was nothing more than a fiction. If that's disappointing, well, boot out the liars that sold you that fiction.

[Kuciwalker]

Of course Oncle Boris supports a sovereign wealth fund - it is literally socialism.

[Fake Boris]

Of course Kuciwalker has nothing to say - "socialism"* turns out to work just fine.

* (In fact it's state capitalism).

[regexcellent]

That's a stupid distinction.

[Fake Boris]

In Europe where socialist often means social-democrat, it's a mostly pointless distinction.

In the US/Canada where it means communist, it's not. Hi.

[giblets]

In Europe where socialist often means social-democrat, it's a mostly pointless distinction.

In the US/Canada where it means communist, it's not. Hi.

I thought "socialist" meant "very liberal" in the US.

[Fake Boris]

I thought "socialist" meant "very liberal" in the US.

With a strong, pejorative, communist implication, iiuc.

[DaShi]

Socialist and conservative parties in Europe aren't as different as they are in the US. In fact, left and right politics in Europe only refer to which side someone will do that fruity air kissing thing when they greet you.