They all had their faults but none of them were pure evil like the current one.

LOL! It is not that I like that clown of a president they have now, but please tell me what those other guys had to brag about?? 🙄🙄😫

On 5/28/2025 at 2:33 AM, BLMFem said:

But, but, but......

 

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.......

Making fun of biden's stutter are ya?

Finally read the OP, as usually ignore.  So a WP fluff op-ed, with basically no meaning, which goes with the false headliner.

 

... "Obama, Biden and Clinton did not explicitly name Trump, but their message was unmistakable. The three Democrats said, as much by their presence as their words, that these are unusual times for American democracy, that norms are being disregarded and extraordinary measures are required. The only living president who has not spoken out since Inauguration Day is Republican George W. Bush, though he has made little secret of his antipathy for Trump" ...

 

And Bush, does sound a peep, who hated for Trump is well known.

 

More 'fake news' from MSM 

 

When will the deranged topics stop 😎

On 5/27/2025 at 11:06 PM, TedG said:

 

This is not even remotely true.  If Joe Biden cared about the “sacred promise” of Social Security he would have fixed the permanent defcit that started under Obama in 2010. 

 

The dems are nothing but lying machines. 

Casting large groups of people into a single simplistic category has the advantage of being mentally unchallenging and entirely precludes the need for structured judgment and discernment. A lazy mind is a happy mind.☺️

 

Well done. You earned 2 Lazada Coins. 

 

Personally I find mammals repulsive. Aquatic life is tolerable if it stays under the water. Avians just clutter the skies and deserve to be sucked into jet engines.

 

What say you Ted?

7 hours ago, RocketDog said:

Casting large groups of people into a single simplistic category has the advantage of being mentally unchallenging and entirely precludes the need for structured judgment and discernment. A lazy mind is a happy mind.☺️

 

Well done. You earned 2 Lazada Coins. 

 

Personally I find mammals repulsive. Aquatic life is tolerable if it stays under the water. Avians just clutter the skies and deserve to be sucked into jet engines.

 

What say you Ted?

I say you are a low information poster. 

On 5/30/2025 at 9:10 PM, gamb00ler said:

I only answer really really stupid questions on Leap Year day, sorry!

I accept your surrender on this topic. 

On 5/30/2025 at 9:02 PM, gamb00ler said:

I knew you would fail.

 

The ONLY difference is that in A the Chinese economy benefits and in B the SS trust fund benefits.

Which do you prefer?

Were does the money come from to pay the interest? 

On 5/29/2025 at 11:00 PM, TedG said:

But that's no reason to ignore the serious fiscal issues with America's main retirement program. Since 2010, it has been running a cash-flow deficit—meaning that the Social Security payroll taxes the government collects aren't enough to cover the benefits it's obliged to pay out. That should have been a signal that the time had come to look at reform.

 

Indeed. The whole SS program is a cash flow entity -- pay-as-you-go with collected cash; any surplus cash is loaned to the Treasury to buy aircraft carriers, in exchange for an IOU; money from taxes collected on SS benefits paid also go to the Treasury, in exchange for an IOU. And interest on this whole conglomeration in the Trust fund is credited annually to the Trust fund -- solely as IOUs. 

 

This whole thing is an accounting entity. Thus, with IOUs from interest, the Trust fund has a positive balance that says the Fund was solvent until 2021. But it's IOUs -- NOT cash -- that allowed for this accounting picture. Thus, the Fund went broke in 2010, when cash out exceeded cash in. Simple. So, don't let the accounting slight-of-hand lead you astray: IOUs are not the same as cash. 

 

Actually, we could discard the whole Trust Fund concept -- again, it's only an accounting gimmick, so we can see the comparison of cash taxes collected against cash benefit payouts. Why not just have SS as a line item on the annual Congressional budget -- to be covered, like all the other line items, with general tax collections. Then, if there's an overrun in outlays -- like what usually happens with most line items in a Congressional budget -- eat the overrun, like you'd do with F-35s -- and then just add that to all the others, in the annual budget overrun figure (and kick the can down the road, like we always have -- why make SS any different from any other "must pay" govt programs....?)

 

 

 

 

On 5/29/2025 at 11:00 PM, TedG said:

But that's no reason to ignore the serious fiscal issues with America's main retirement program. Since 2010, it has been running a cash-flow deficit—meaning that the Social Security payroll taxes the government collects aren't enough to cover the benefits it's obliged to pay out. That should have been a signal that the time had come to look at reform.

 

Indeed. The whole SS program is a cash flow entity -- pay-as-you-go with collected cash; any surplus cash is loaned to the Treasury to buy aircraft carriers, in exchange for an IOU; money from taxes collected on SS benefits paid also go to the Treasury, in exchange for an IOU. And interest on this whole conglomeration in the Trust fund is credited annually to the Trust fund -- solely as IOUs. 

 

This whole thing is an accounting entity. Thus, with IOUs from interest, the Trust fund has a positive balance that says the Fund was solvent until 2021. But it's IOUs -- NOT cash -- that allowed for this accounting picture. Thus, the Fund went broke in 2010, when cash out exceeded cash in. Simple. So, don't let the accounting slight-of-hand lead you astray: IOUs are not the same as cash. 

 

Actually, we could discard the whole Trust Fund concept -- again, it's only an accounting gimmick, so we can see the comparison of cash taxes collected against cash benefit payouts. Why not just have SS as a line item on the annual Congressional budget -- to be covered, like all the other line items, with general tax collections. Then, if there's an overrun in outlays -- like what usually happens with most line items in a Congressional budget -- eat the overrun, like you'd do with F-35s -- and then just add that to all the others, in the annual budget overrun figure (and kick the can down the road, like we always have -- why make SS any different from any other "must pay" govt programs....?)

On 5/30/2025 at 10:20 PM, gamb00ler said:

do you need help to spot the only difference between A and B?

 

Yeah, the Chinese get cash; the SS Trust Fund gets an IOU for the money now headed for the builder of the Ford class aircraft carrier -- plus another IOU for annual interest. Real money vs. an accounting gimmick. 

24 minutes ago, JimGant said:

Yeah, the Chinese get cash; the SS Trust Fund gets an IOU for the money now headed for the builder of the Ford class aircraft carrier -- plus another IOU for annual interest. Real money vs. an accounting gimmick. 

Real money is still arriving in my account.  The IOU's are rapidly being replaced with REAL SS benefits.  The OASI trust fund peaked in 2021 at 2.71 trillion.

On 5/31/2025 at 7:45 AM, gamb00ler said:

There is also no budgetary relationship between the Treasury and the SS funds.  The US federal budget does not include any income or expenditure related to the SS trust funds.

 

So your claim that the Federal government is borrowing from itself is obviously false except in your make believe world.

 

Actually, the US Federal budget has to pay back those IOUs held by the SS Trust Fund, which it's been doing since 2010, when the SS Trust Fund finally reached a negative cash flow situation. And prior to that, the Fed govt certainly was borrowing from itself, when it absorbed the excess cash collected by the SS Fund, and traded it for IOUs. 

On 5/29/2025 at 11:01 PM, TedG said:

Sorry dude.  I'm  right and you are 100% wrong. 

 

Yep.

Just now, JimGant said:

 

Actually, the US Federal budget has to pay back those IOUs held by the SS Trust Fund, which it's been doing since 2010, when the SS Trust Fund finally reached a negative cash flow situation. And prior to that, the Fed govt certainly was borrowing from itself, when it absorbed the excess cash collected by the SS Fund, and traded it for IOUs. 

I never said anything that disagrees with your take.  I believe that the SS trust funds were mandated from the beginning to ONLY invest in Treasury bills.  I don't think that practice began in 2010. 

4 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

The OASI trust fund peaked in 2021 at 2.71 trillion.

Only in IOUs -- not in cash.

On 5/30/2025 at 5:28 PM, TedG said:

Interest payments originate from the general fund and are an expense to taxpayers.

 

You don't undersand how this suff works.   It's one side of the government paying the other side of the government. 

 

You will never admit that you are wrong. 

I never posted anything that disagrees with your above statement.  I do however completely disagree with your notion that because the SS lends funds to the Treasury that the taxpayers are paying extra.

9 minutes ago, JimGant said:

Only in IOUs -- not in cash.

that's funny..... most investors choose Treasury bills because of the safety of that investment.... it's not an accounting 'trick' as you claim.  It is a lending:borrowing relationship that is not substantively different from the relationship between savvy investors and US Treasury.  The main difference is that the Treasury is continually making benefit payments on behalf of SSA, which are continually reducing the balance owed.

 

In effect the Treasury performs a cash management function for the SSA.

10 minutes ago, JimGant said:

Only in IOUs -- not in cash.

For heaven's sake --- you want SS trust funds in cash???    that's the craziest notion ever from you.

@JimGant @TedG, you guys really need to break this SSA <-> Treasury thing down to its components and remove the emotion from your analysis.

 

If SSA was a private company selling inflation adjusted annuities via monthly premiums to a group of US customers and it invested the accumulating capital in Treasury bills/bonds.... what would you say about that practice?  What would be the impact on US taxpayers?

9 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

For heaven's sake --- you want SS trust funds in cash???    that's the craziest notion ever from you

I think you've lost the gist of this discussion. Perhaps it's time to go back to Canada. 

Essentially SSA is a completely separate entity from the US Federal government.  The US budget does not include any income or expenditure to/from SSA.  The SSA determines the benefit levels.... not the US government.  The SSA is however restricted in its investment choices by the Bills that created it.  It is forced to lend its excess funds to the Treasury.  SSA receives no special benefits considerations from the Treasury.  In rare circumstances the Treasury has made the SSA Trust funds whole when a Congressional stimulus bill temporarily reduces the FICA rates paid by employees.  There have been some other adjustments involving the armed forces but those are infrequent and do not have significant impact on SSA trust funds.

2 minutes ago, JimGant said:

I think you've lost the gist of this discussion. Perhaps it's time to go back to Canada. 

what do you consider the gist I'm missing?  What exactly is the impact on SSA, taxpayers, benefit recipients from that gist?

4 minutes ago, JimGant said:

I think you've lost the gist of this discussion. Perhaps it's time to go back to Canada. 

You typically back up your position with analysis.  Why not in this case?

15 minutes ago, JimGant said:

I think you've lost the gist of this discussion. Perhaps it's time to go back to Canada. 

From Thailand?   LOL   you're rapidly losing credibility.

1 hour ago, JimGant said:

This whole thing is an accounting entity.

You do realize that this is very similar to how US banks function, no?  Customer balances are just numbers in a balance sheet backuped up by a much smaller float as mandated by the US Federal Reserve.

 

By monkeying with the percentage of reserve the banks MUST maintain the Federal Reserve has the ability to create 'money' out of thin air.

On 6/1/2025 at 1:27 PM, harryviking said:

LOL! It is not that I like that clown of a president they have now, but please tell me what those other guys had to brag about?? 🙄🙄😫

US still had reliable friends that were not dictators.

1 hour ago, gamb00ler said:

US still had reliable friends that were not dictators.

 

1 hour ago, ThreeCardMonte said:

U.S. has a president, not a dictator.

 

How did you come up with this far fetched nonsense?

 

Because he’s deporting criminals?

 

Because he’s bringing inflation down?

 

Because he’s making countries pay tariffs who have been Fuc—— us over for decades?

 

You can’t even define dictator.

Wha??????

As I said before... your reading comprehension is abysmal.  You somehow can't parse my very simple and short sentence to arrive at its obvious meaning.  Maybe you should take a looooong vacation.

On 6/1/2025 at 11:51 PM, RocketDog said:

Casting large groups of people into a single simplistic category has the advantage of being mentally unchallenging and entirely precludes the need for structured judgment and discernment. A lazy mind is a happy mind.☺️

 

Well done. You earned 2 Lazada Coins. 

 

Personally I find mammals repulsive. Aquatic life is tolerable if it stays under the water. Avians just clutter the skies and deserve to be sucked into jet engines.

 

What say you Ted?

 

You mean like democrats saying (in an email to me)

 

Republicans are a bunch of overgrown schoolyard bullies.

Our constituents shouldn’t have to suffer because Republicans want to act like children. This pettiness needs to end. I was there ready to ask questions on nuclear non-proliferation and US support for our democratic allies in Europe.

 

 

Or this from January 2023.   Didn't happen did it?  Note the "terrorists" claim.  Who let potential terrorist's into the U.S. unvetted?

 

MAGA Republicans in the U.S. House are planning a US government shutdown to force President Biden to destroy essential programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans benefits, public schools, college loans, and climate jobs.

President Biden will not give in to these MAGA terrorist demands, so the United States will default on its bonds, triggering an economic meltdown.

• Stock markets will collapse, wiping out pension funds, 501ks, and IRAs.

• Interest rates will soar, canceling investments in construction and manufacturing.

• The U.S. government will be unable to pay the military, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

• State and local governments will be unable to pay police, teachers, firefighters, hospitals, etc.

Before long, the U.S. will be in a Depression.

17 hours ago, JimGant said:

I think you've lost the gist of this discussion. Perhaps it's time to go back to Canada. 

Welll..... a deafening silence on your analysis

 

Here's the gist that you have apparently lost:

TedG incorrectly stated:

1) that the SS trust funds started to decline in 2010.

2) the Feds are borrowing from themsleves(sic).

3) When the Special T bills are redeemed, the taxpayer has to pay again, or the federal government borrows money to pay back the Department of SS, which adds to the debt and deficit, another expense to the taxpayer

4) Or the money is borrowed by the feds, which adds to the debt and deficit, another expense to the taxpayer.

5) Since 2010, it has been running a cash-flow deficit.

 

TedG is correct in the sense that the FICA taxes alone do not cover the benefits paid since 2010.  He chooses to ignore the interest income the trust funds earn which until 2021 was sufficient to cover the shortfall in FICA collection.  The shortfall in FICA income is very widely known and I never disputed it.

 

TedG continually states that taxpayers have already paid extra costs because they are dinged for the interest on the special SS Treasury bills purchased by the SS trust fund.  He doesn't understand they would have been charged the same interest if any other lender/investor had purchased the Treasury bills required to cover the national debt.

 

So I disagree.... I have not lost any gist.  TedG has and now I'm thinking you may have also.