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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Q Cubed
and what's wrong with foisting the care of their parents onto their children? or are we not so sure about personal responsibility here? |
Because it's inefficient. Most homes aren't that big and most people don't like living with their parents.
quote:
why i don't ***** about auto insurance: i don't drive a car. if i did, i would, but specifically in regards to the rates i would get being an unmarried male under the age of 25. i would not complain about everyone having to have it, because if some nutjob hits me, i'll at least be guaranteed that i won't have to pay for damage they caused. |
That's the same reasoning behind social security. If everyone pays who is able to (because our market economy distributes incomes such that it would be a hardship for very poor people to pay) then we don't see old people on the street. Almost no one wants to see that, and almost no one wants to see elderly people dying prematurely for lack of basic medical care.
Everyone is compelled to pay because people wouldn't pay enough if it were left to the market. Some because they couldn't afford it, others because they would be hoping that other people would.
Without social security many elderly people would end up being dependent on their families. Not only do many people find this degrading, but it isn't an option for people who choose not to have children or are otherwise estranged from their offspring.
All social security is, is insurance against dying young. People need it for the same reason they need other forms of insurance - risk sharing. If we left it up to the market, large numbers of people would be uninsured for various reasons. That's why it's a compulsory scheme - same as car insurance.
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as for costs of having to house and care for elderly parents: you forget, i was raised in an environment where i internalized a lot of confucian mores. there is no option for me but to house and care for my elderly parents, whether i like living with them more not. |
The vast majority of people are not like you. Especially in societies like Canada and the US.
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annoyance of elderly people in the streets? about as annoying as regular people in the streets. the elderly would just garner more pity. it's not my fault if some ungrateful fool of a child doesn't want to care for his or her parents, and because they shirk their responsibility, i should have to pay? |
Because it's a public good. Unlike you, most people think it is positively awful that elderly people suffer. But if payment is not compulsory very few people would pay, because they would be hoping that others would (in which case they would get the benefit without paying). But this hardly ever works. It's a standard collective action problem, just as in the case of auto insurance and countless other problems people face. The short answer is that you have to pay, because if you didn't hardly anyone would.
quote:
and yes, it is an argument against social security, those voting numbers. my responsibility to other peoples' parents stops where their responsibility begins. because they're going to bankrupt the system, it will be non-existent for me. |
But you still haven't provided a reasonable alternative. You say that you are not responsible. Well, you aren't responsible for other people driving badly, yet if you drive a car you are compelled to have insurance. On the face of it, that might seem unfair, but the alternative is worse - masses of uninsured drivers.
In short, your own personal responsibility is trumped when everyone is going to be worse off if we allow people to pick and choose. Same goes for funding the police or the army. In fact, same goes for a lot of things, if we weren't compelled by the state in certain spheres, we would regress to a state of nature.
Rah is right - there's nothing wrong in principle with SS, but there are problems of implementation. That's where the real debate is.
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MRT144
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Seattle Washington
Oct 2002
time: 21:32
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i got a better idea. kill people over the age of 70. logan's run style.
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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
Because it's inefficient. Most homes aren't that big and most people don't like living with their parents. |
i don't enjoy living with my parents, but life sucks that way. get over it.
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Because it's a public good. Unlike you, most people think it is positively awful that elderly people suffer. But if payment is not compulsory very few people would pay, because they would be hoping that others would (in which case they would get the benefit without paying). But this hardly ever works. It's a standard collective action problem, just as in the case of auto insurance and countless other problems people face. The short answer is that you have to pay, because if you didn't hardly anyone would. |
yes, it sucks that elderly people suffer. they can go to a church. they can go to any numerous aid organizations, nothing's stopping them.
i object to the simple fact that i am being robbed of my rightful compensation, and by the time i'm eligible to receive the 'benefits', the system will be so broken that they won't bother robbing those younger than me to support my habit of dipping into the government's till.
quote:
But you still haven't provided a reasonable alternative. You say that you are not responsible. Well, you aren't responsible for other people driving badly, yet if you drive a car you are compelled to have insurance. |
i'm not responsible for other people driving badly. and if they have an accident with me that's their fault, i'm not the one responsible for paying for the damages.
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Rah is right - there's nothing wrong in principle with SS, but there are problems of implementation. That's where the real debate is. |
tell me when you have an idea of social security that works. right now, it's broken. i haven't the foggiest how to fix it. does this mean i have no right to be pissed off?
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Would you abolish all forms of taxes, because those are a form of social welfare, in a sense taking responsibility for those outside of our immediate family? |
please. nowhere have i said that i oppose other forms of taxation. my only beef here is with the very nature of social security. it takes money from me on the promise that i will get something in return later. however, it's getting clearer and clearer that they are not planning on coming up with the second half of that deal. because of that, i resent having to pay taxes which i will not receive the benefit of.
yes, in a society, there are bounds. but to hold me responsible for someone else being an ass to their parents? how is that any different from holding me responsible for someone's grandparents having enslaved someone else's grandparents?
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Q Cubed
quote:
Because it's inefficient. Most homes aren't that big and most people don't like living with their parents. |
i don't enjoy living with my parents, but life sucks that way. get over it. |
How old are you?
quote:
yes, it sucks that elderly people suffer. they can go to a church. they can go to any numerous aid organizations, nothing's stopping them.
i object to the simple fact that i am being robbed of my rightful compensation, and by the time i'm eligible to receive the 'benefits', the system will be so broken that they won't bother robbing those younger than me to support my habit of dipping into the government's till. |
No they can't. Charity is not sufficient and proved insufficient in the past.
quote:
i'm not responsible for other people driving badly. and if they have an accident with me that's their fault, i'm not the one responsible for paying for the damages. |
You've completely missed the point.
The point is not whose fault it is, but the consequences of having voluntary insurance schemes. Car insurance is compulsory for one reason, if it weren't, there would be masses of uninsured drivers. As Ben pointed out, if the state doesn't sometimes coerce people everyone ends up worse off. This is the rationale behind social security and all the other things I mentioned. You can't have one without the other.
You still haven't proposed an alternative scheme that would work better than social security. In the absence of that, all this is is you moaning about not wanting to pay tax.
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tell me when you have an idea of social security that works. right now, it's broken. i haven't the foggiest how to fix it. does this mean i have no right to be pissed off? |
It does work. Poverty rates among the elderly are generally lower than they would otherwise be and they generally get the medical care they need. Of course tweaking it might make it more efficient, but that is not an argument against Social Security.
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please. nowhere have i said that i oppose other forms of taxation. my only beef here is with the very nature of social security. it takes money from me on the promise that i will get something in return later. however, it's getting clearer and clearer that they are not planning on coming up with the second half of that deal. because of that, i resent having to pay taxes which i will not receive the benefit of. |
Much of this is scaremongering about a problem that could be solved by raising the retirement age, among other things. It is not an argument against social security per se.
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yes, in a society, there are bounds. but to hold me responsible for someone else being an ass to their parents? how is that any different from holding me responsible for someone's grandparents having enslaved someone else's grandparents? |
Whether or not you are responsible makes no difference. It's entirely irrelevant to compulsory taxation in support of public goods. If you aren't responsible for any car crashes you still have to buy insurance, because if it is made voluntary, the results will be worse off overall.
Now let's say that tomorrow you are struck by a falling tree and paralyzed. Would you still then argue against social security measures being used to benefit you, even though the accident wasn't your fault, or anyone else's?
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Rex Little
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There's really no difference between Social Security and any other pyramid scheme except that SS is compulsory. The people who retired just as SS began got the best deal; it got steadily worse over time, and at some point the cost outweighed the benefit for any given individual (as several here have pointed out, anyone retiring today would be much better off if he could have kept his SS payments and invested them). As time goes on, the benefits will shrink and/or the taxes will grow; there's no way around it. Increasing the age at which benefits are paid just postpones the inevitable.
Even if you accept the idea that it's right to tax people to pay for the care of the elderly (I don't, but will concede it here for the sake of argument), Social Security is a horribly inefficient way of doing so. The tax is regressive (flat rate, but the upper limit means that high earners pay a lower total percentage) and the payouts are made without any regard to need.
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12-12-2003 03:03
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