Skip to main content

Your Social Security is more Secure than your Securities

You aren't smarter than the market. It really is that simple.

Allen Sloan over at Fortune Magazine is making the case that Social Security will run out of money in 10 years. His are the crocodile tears of the very people who have looted social security, using the excess social security taxes to provide themselves and their rich cronies with tax breaks. He makes clear his new-found concern for social security is really an excuse to further raid the treasury with his suggestion for a solution: "We can still buy time by investing current cash surpluses in non-Treasury assets." I.e. we should use social security taxes to buy some of his rich buddies' fancy financial products.

To understand how this really works you need to start with social security taxes. The original idea was that the taxes paid by current workers would pay the current benefits for people who were retired. In turn, the next generation of workers would pay the retirement of the next generation of retirees.

The critics like to describe this as a "ponzi " or pyramid scheme, but it isn't. It ought to be clear to anyone that once they retire they will be supported by the people still in the work force. The question is how those people will get paid. Whether its personal savings or social security that money will have to be taken out of the economy - which is another way of saying that those still producing will have to pay the bill. Far from a scheme, that is simply the way life works. People are born, join the work force, retire and die.

In the early 1990's there was a recognition that there was an element of a pyramid being created by the country's demographics. More people were entering the workforce than leaving it for retirement and the resources available to pay social security benefits was greater than would be sustainable when the baby boomers retired and those numbers reversed. The result was the "Social Security Trust Fund" where current workers paid more social security taxes than was necessary to pay current retiree benefits.

The extra money from Social Security taxes was put into treasury bills. The same treasury bills the government uses to borrow money from anyone else. Like the T-bills Mr. Sloan and his friends buy to avoid taxes and that, presumably, the government will have to pay him and his friends a higher return on to borrow the money they are currently borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.

The problem is not how the trust fund is invested. Its that many of the conservative critics don't want to have to pay off the loans the government took out to provide tax breaks to their rich friends. Social security taxes are incredibly regressive. They tax low income wage earners at a higher rate than those making over $100,000. Every year we pay more social security taxes than are needed to pay current retirees and the government borrows that money instead of raising the more progressive income tax. As that surplus is disappearing the government has two options, raise taxes or borrow more money from elsewhere.

Where Mr. Sloan is fundamentally wrong is suggesting the problem is ten years off. It is happening now. Each year the surplus available from social security taxes is declining and the government is having to borrow more from other sources, reduce spending or raise taxes. That process will continue into the foreseeable future. Putting social security trust funds into non-government securities will just speed it up. Of course, Mr. Sloan and his financial services friends will make a hefty profit from fast tracking the social security deficit.

But the larger problem is that the social security issue is an example of a much more fundamental shift. Over the next 50 years, fewer workers are going to have to produce the goods and services used by a large number of people who aren't in the work force. Social security is only one institution which is going to be effected by that reality, so is every business. Global markets may be able to absorb some of the production, but for the United States that will require continuing to transfer huge amounts of wealth overseas in the form of loans and/or capital.

And if you want to find a ponzi scheme look no further than the dot-com "bubble" or the real estate "bubble" or dozens of other unsustainable investments. The money "lost" in these bubbles was found by the people who got rich off them, just like any other pyramid scheme. But don't let anyone convince you to base your retirement on those investments whether its your 401-K or the social security trust fund.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Self-Directed Real Estate IRA's the New Scam?

You aren't smarter than the market. It really is that simple. You know the marketing folks have been out talking when the New York Times does a fluff story on some new way to make more money with your investments. So watch out for the new scam promoted by the same media advisers who told you a few years ago to buy the most expensive house a lender would finance. Paul Sullivan story is about people'e successful investment of their retirement money in real estate using a self-directed IRA. He provides us with several "success stories".  Of course they are all recent converters to this idea and, not surprising, all but one of the people whose story Sullivan tells are also in real estate sales. The problem isn't really Paul Sullivan. Its that there is no one who makes money by digging out the horror stories from people who invested their retirement funds in real estate at the height of the housing bubble. There aren't any public relations firms devoted to de

The Stock Market hasn't gone up, the Value of the Dollar has Just Gone Down.

You aren't smarter than the market. It really is that simple. The New York Times had an article about the stock market's recent gains. The story noted that while the market had gone up 11% since the election, the dollar had dropped 10% against a basket of foreign currencies during that same period. They described this as "almost a mirror image." Unfortunately it is exactly a mirror image for people who hold those foreign currencies. Lets say they paid a $100 for a share of stock the day of the election and they exchanged 100 units of their own currency for that $100. Now if they sell that stock they will get $111 dollars, but when they exchange that $111 dollars, they will get back 100 units of their own currency. They have earned nothing, in their own local currency's terms the price hasn't changed. In a world investment market, the price of stock is set by what people around the world are willing to pay for it. Most people are still paying the same pr

The Myth of Taking Equity from Your House

You aren't smarter than the market. It really is that simple. The idea that you can "take money" out of your home is a common myth that gets a lot of people in trouble in a hot real estate market. It is a myth that is based on several misunderstandings that are often repeated. Myth 1: When an investment you own goes up in value you have "made money." In fact, you only make money from an asset's appreciation when you sell the asset. Until then, the current valuation is just an estimate of how much money you will make when you actually sell it. As long as you still own the asset, the value you will get is still in play. It isn't money. This is particularly important with a home. If you want to take your profit out of your house you have to sell it and that usually means replacing it with another home. Myth 2:  Refinancing  "takes your equity" out of your house. This myth is particularly pernicious. In fact, the description of people &qu