Since I'm ranting
Jan. 13th, 2005 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asheris"reworking" Social Security.
Bush wants to change from a solvent program (for at least another 40-50 years), to one that will be unstable almost immediately.
He wants to go from a program with less than 1% in overhead expenses, to one that will cost between 15%-30% for overhead.
He wants to go from a sure thing, to the market that creamed 401k/IRAs - aka "Personal Retirement Accounts" (including mine).
They're lying again. The only Social Security Crisis is that Bush and his pals are doing their best to demolish it.
Ah, silly me... I live in a FACT-BASED reality, not the "new paradigm" that the Bushnuts believe they're creating.
Personal retirement accounts? A lot of people have 'em. 401k's, IRA's, etc. You can even take the deduction pre-tax, if your employer has such a program, and most do.
Except for small businesses- there are very few ways companies with under 10 employees are allowed to have retirement account programs. That's changing, but employees of small companies are currently screwed.
And, of course, people working at WalMart, etc., need every penny they can get off their meagre paycheck, so putting money away isn't even an option. Not in the real world of bills that have to be paid.
Yes, there are Roth IRA's, and I do have one, that you put money into after taxes. Bugger is, I need every penny I make just to keep my head above water right now! I've got nothing I can put into my Roth and traditional IRAs for the future.
Unfortunately, those "personal retirement accounts" are worth shit these days anyway because of the way the market crashed in early 20011, and now, with the dollar being so low, they're continuing to languish.
Seriously. My 401k/IRA's weren't worth a lot in late 2000, but it was still about 10k towards retirement! (Acceptable, given that retirement was 30+ years away.) In under a year (pre 9/11), they dropped to less than 1/3 of their best value- to less than 1/2 what I put into them. And no, they weren't tech heavy- in fact, they had very little computer tech at all. Mutual funds, a good international blend, some US funds that focused on medical technology (mainly devices, not drugs), blue chips, bonds, etc. A good mix- some risk, but not too much, and a small core of stable, reliable producers.
I know people who'd invested carefully, who had over $100,000 in their accounts due to wise choices, and getting out of a stock/fund while it was still high and deciding not to press their luck. Careful people. People who lost 90% of the value of their retirement accounts because of the market's fast, thorough dive.
Gee, yeah, let's put everybody's nice, safe Social Security funds into something like that!
1. Yes, the market was no longer growing much in 1999-2000, and had times of small declines; that was an expected correction to the tech boom nuttiness. It was gradual, steady, and people had time to make changes to their portfolios to avoid complete disaster. From December 2000-August 2001, it dropped steadily, across the board. (Handy chart of Dow Jones closing numbers here. That little pit at the end of 2000? The day the Supreme Court selected Bush. It struggles back upwards for a couple of months, but starts falling about May-June 2001- it was already declining quickly before 9/11.
Bush wants to change from a solvent program (for at least another 40-50 years), to one that will be unstable almost immediately.
He wants to go from a program with less than 1% in overhead expenses, to one that will cost between 15%-30% for overhead.
He wants to go from a sure thing, to the market that creamed 401k/IRAs - aka "Personal Retirement Accounts" (including mine).
They're lying again. The only Social Security Crisis is that Bush and his pals are doing their best to demolish it.
Ah, silly me... I live in a FACT-BASED reality, not the "new paradigm" that the Bushnuts believe they're creating.
Personal retirement accounts? A lot of people have 'em. 401k's, IRA's, etc. You can even take the deduction pre-tax, if your employer has such a program, and most do.
Except for small businesses- there are very few ways companies with under 10 employees are allowed to have retirement account programs. That's changing, but employees of small companies are currently screwed.
And, of course, people working at WalMart, etc., need every penny they can get off their meagre paycheck, so putting money away isn't even an option. Not in the real world of bills that have to be paid.
Yes, there are Roth IRA's, and I do have one, that you put money into after taxes. Bugger is, I need every penny I make just to keep my head above water right now! I've got nothing I can put into my Roth and traditional IRAs for the future.
Unfortunately, those "personal retirement accounts" are worth shit these days anyway because of the way the market crashed in early 20011, and now, with the dollar being so low, they're continuing to languish.
Seriously. My 401k/IRA's weren't worth a lot in late 2000, but it was still about 10k towards retirement! (Acceptable, given that retirement was 30+ years away.) In under a year (pre 9/11), they dropped to less than 1/3 of their best value- to less than 1/2 what I put into them. And no, they weren't tech heavy- in fact, they had very little computer tech at all. Mutual funds, a good international blend, some US funds that focused on medical technology (mainly devices, not drugs), blue chips, bonds, etc. A good mix- some risk, but not too much, and a small core of stable, reliable producers.
I know people who'd invested carefully, who had over $100,000 in their accounts due to wise choices, and getting out of a stock/fund while it was still high and deciding not to press their luck. Careful people. People who lost 90% of the value of their retirement accounts because of the market's fast, thorough dive.
Gee, yeah, let's put everybody's nice, safe Social Security funds into something like that!
1. Yes, the market was no longer growing much in 1999-2000, and had times of small declines; that was an expected correction to the tech boom nuttiness. It was gradual, steady, and people had time to make changes to their portfolios to avoid complete disaster. From December 2000-August 2001, it dropped steadily, across the board. (Handy chart of Dow Jones closing numbers here. That little pit at the end of 2000? The day the Supreme Court selected Bush. It struggles back upwards for a couple of months, but starts falling about May-June 2001- it was already declining quickly before 9/11.
