The Glade 4.0

Even in that thread people acknolwedged the existence of the bonds in the trust fund. This is the first time I've ever heard someone claim that even the IOUs don't actually exist.

Use your head, Xequecal. If Barack Obama had 2 trillion dollars in federal money for the implementation of ObamaCare, do you think it would sit unspent? Do you think he'd be pushing entitlement funding back on the states of he had 2 trillion dollars in a trust fund somewhere? They don't exist; just another lie the Federal Government spews.

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There isn't $2 trillion in a trust fund, it's $2 trillion in government bonds, it's not actual dollars. Theoretically he could sell those bonds on the open market to get money but I can't imagine that's even remotely legal or would go unreported.

Not sure you've been paying attention, Xequecal, but what about Barack Obama inspires your confidence in his ability to obey the law? He may, amazingly, be more inclined to make use of questionable, imperial executive policies than the Shrub.

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If you have an IOU from Khross for $2 trillion dollars what do you have in reality? Now you take that IOU to a JG Wentworth and they give you X amount to the dollar based on their belief that Khross will be able to honor that debt.

For me, a bond from a government that has to borrow a huge portion of its operating budget is a junk bond. I know theyll jump through every hoop and use any and every trick to keep it afloat, because if they dont- well we all know that result.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Unfortunately, the market disagrees with you. There's a fairly high demand for US government debt. Your claim that the bonds are worthless is just your opinion. In fact, under your criteria, pretty much all government bonds are junk bonds. The only governments that aren't deep in the hole are a few oil-rich countries with small populations.

Khross is claiming that even the bonds themselves don't exist, that either the government has sold them off in secret or that they never existed at all, and the government is now is funding SS entirely through borrowing. This is a claim I have literally never heard before even from extreme right-wing sources and is frankly something I don't believe at all. That would constitute the biggest political scandal in the past century, dwarfing literally everything else.

Dont exsist as in the money that is referred to on the IOUs does not exsist. At least thats how im understanding it, and I can of course be wrong.

On to the markets- yes its my opinion. Ive pulled my municipal bonds due to a likelihood of default/freezing rates etc as localities start going deep into the red. But look at what theyre actually trading in- an assurance that a debt will be honored in the future. To me thats a very big gamble considering the Feds rate of spending. So yes I feel most of them are junk bonds that only have value for as long as faith in them is maintained.

So to maintain that faith, what would the government do?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

It will seize private retirement accounts.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

No need, we have the fancy new myRA for that.

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Yeah lemme hand complete access to my retirement to an entity that has to borrow money to stay working, and has the power to take their "fair share" via legislative fiat.

Nucking futs

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

The best part is that myRA apparently buys only government bonds which prop up what?

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Xequecal:

The bonds don't exist. If they ever existed, they were liquidated during Clinton's Administration to borrow the budget, but I have no reason to believe they've ever existed. Social Security began payments immediately and supplied benefits to individuals who had not contributed to the system. Clinton actually put those taxes into the general fund during his Administration, which means any in-year surplus is immediately used for other projects and payments. As for it being a political scandal, that only happens when they don't pay the entitlement monies. And that's going to happen soon enough, since the Federal government already has problems making Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements to the States.

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Yeah, myRA will just be a tax on the stupid. Of course, the best part of this agenda item is that it duplicates the already ostensibly functioning system we're talking about through voluntary involvement. Why on earth do you need a government funded IRA when that is what SS was supposed to do in the first place?

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None of this demonstrates that the bonds don't exist. When Social Security was started, the age people started receiving benefits was nine years older than the life expectancy at the time. A lot of people paid in and few collected.

You're making a lot of inconsistent statements that don't really support your position of the bonds not existing. Clinton diverting surpluses to the general fund is exactly what I said has been happening, the government borrows from Social Security. It does not mean the built-up trust fund does not exist.

You realize that they can do this no matter what you put your money in, right?

Yep.

This is why DFK! tries (usually poorly) to focus on early debt reduction rather than investment and would never do a 401k.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine