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Originally Posted by dogzilla
You start with financial education and money management in school, something which is very much lacking anyway. You teach people they are responsible for themselves, and that Joe down the street isn't responsible for them. Maybe restrict the eligible investments into a set of funds which are regarded as safe investments by a broad base group of economists. Maybe start new hires with a default savings plan, which individuals can change if they wish. That's what my company does. Prohibit people from early withdrawals or borrowing against their 401K.
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Ok, so what do you, as king, do with those people who, through bad luck, stupidity, or whatever, *still* don't save up enough to provide for their own retirement?
"Let them starve." is a perfectly reasonable answer. If I agreed with your view of government, that's the one I'd give. If it isn't the governments responsibility, then that's all there is to it. They can rely on private charity, family, or simply starve (or die of exposure to the elements).
Quote:
Originally Posted by dogzilla
No system is perfect. In the current system, if I die a year after starting retirement, the money I paid into my retirement fund is lost. How is the government confiscating approximately 12% of my income fair?
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It's a tax. Government's levy taxes. Taxing is pretty much they're reason for existing in the first place. :-)
This one is a regressive tax on income from labor, and part of the deal is that, instead of using it for something nice and useful, like killing foreigners, the government will give some of this money back when you're ready to retire (yes, assuming you live that long). If you're lucky and/or wise enough to have put away enough money for your own retirement, the SS money will just be a nice extra. If not, it should give you enough to survive on.
If you ever make enough money to be truly rich, the social security tax will drop to a very small portion of your total tax burden...the SS tax is capped at something like $100k, and most wealthy people derive a fairly large percentage of their income from investments anyway, and that income isn't taxed under SS.
Incidentally, one of the many ways to fix the 'about to collapse' social security system would be to raise that cap a bit.