Is pension system/social security a literal pyramid scheme?

Is pension system/social security a literal pyramid scheme?

take from the young and give to the old , sounds like a scam to me

Literally a Ponzi scheme. Take from new members and give to old ones. The system will last as long as there are more new entrants than old members.

This means the first world will always strive to increase population one way or the other. And first workers have massively larger carbon footprints.

Ironically, leftist policy killed the world.

Social Security was set up by Roosevelt to be self funding, in fact the SS fund actually had a surplus for a long time, he was very concerned about not borrowing against the future to pay for the present. It wasn't until decades later after its creation that Congress changed the rules and took money that was earmarked for SS and used it to pay for other things.

You guys don't know how social security works. Like this user described it was working perfectly fine until the congress fucked with the funds. All it does is basically force people to put money up for savings, cuz you dumb animals would drink it all away then leach off society when you get old.

The problem now is that people are living much longer on average but retire relatively early, which kinda thins out the pot. Also congress borrowed some money which they never gave back.

Some companies still offer private pensions but to my understanding a lot of new ones dont.

It wasn't designed as a pyramid scheme but its kind of turning into one. Congress needs to raise the retirenment age, make a law that prevents any tampering with the SS funds, and create insentives like tax breaks for SS donations from the rich or deny SS benefits to those in the top 20% cuz lets face it at that point they dont need it.

Everyone gets old, everyone gets sick.

Social security is designed to help everyone.

> everyone gets old
> blatantly ignores the terminal ill and emotionally unstable

Get bent you ableist scum

>America is the only country in the world
Wew lad. One of the main arguments the cucks in Germany used for letting in hordes of rapefugees was the fact the Germans aren't breeding anymore and someone needs to pay for dem programs.

I'm killing myself before I reach 50, I'm not sure why would anyone want to live any longer.

>All it does is basically force people to put money up for savings, cuz you dumb animals would drink it all away then leach off society when you get old.
Why exactly do I have to pay for someone's retirement just because he wasn't smart enough to save when he was younger?

Because you're too stupid to opt out apparently?

The only country worth posting about

I'd prefer talking about white countries.

> talks about racism like its a virtue
Plus hasnt merkel made that a virtual impossibility?

Have fun being forced into a melting pot so that you can be as progressive as the big cheese!

> Is pension system/social security a literal pyramid scheme?

Something has to be done to take care of old people, as we no longer live in villages with Walton family type homes where there are multiple generations of family members on hand to care for grandma and grandpa.

I’m 49, divorced with no kids and the Housing Bubble emptied my 401K so at this point, I’ve resigned myself to suicide when I can’t work anymore, because I know there won’t be any Social Security for me and I sure as fuck ain’t going into some state supported old folks home….

>he wasn't smart enough to save when he was younger?

Yes goy... I mean, dude! You should invest in Wall Street for your old age!

Met a senior American in a 10$/night youth hotel in Ankara. He can't afford to live at home so he travels the world on the cheap (or so it appears, he wasn't exactly upfront about his circumstances). Used to be a truck driver.
Met another American about your age in 20$/night "auberge" in Rabat, he was about to buy a home and start a new family in rural Morocco (although he didn't seem poor). Used to be software programmer, then IT manager, then civil aviation pilot.

Not sure what to make of it.

>and the Housing Bubble emptied my 401K so at this point,

Its only a loss if you actually sold your investments, you fucking retard.

The market is up 200% since the 2008 crisis.

it was based on the assumption there would be a nuclear exchange with the USSR by now

I had around $80,000 in my 401K then lost over half from one quarterly statement to the next, then lost my job and had to cash out the rest so I wouldn't lose my fucking house.

But go ahead and keep believing that Wall Street is looking out for your best interest.

...

Wall street isn't, but you're basically subhuman for not having emergency savings. Nobody should expect wall street or anyone else to plan for their hard times, but you should plan for yourself. Take some ownership of your life. You lost money because you were shortsighted and undisciplined.

>wall street screws up, gets bailed out
>average joe screws up, fuck you

socialism for the the filthy rich, capitalism for the regular. I wish you had that `take responsibility` attitude towards Wall st, when dubya was giving them millions of dollars.

As a finance major and someone who owns a sizable investment portfolio. Its not really about hard work, but rather simply having money in at the right time and being able to tell when something is good.

Oh and if we get into efficient market theory, just put all your money in the SP500 and you still make money if you don't want to active trade. I laugh at the plebs who put most of their money into savings accounts.

Honestly, if someone told me I was a leach on society I would. have to agree. I'm not really doing anything productive other than being a money lender.

Martin Luther would have had me publicly beaten if I went back into the 1500's.

>Its not really about hard work,
Take that back, I need my just world theory intact.

whats your advice on the the plebian masses? just vanguard index?

Yeah SP500 is at 7-9% every year.

Keep in mind if you need the money during an economic recession you will have a bad time.

However, if you put money into the market in 2007 bubble before it crashed and waited til now, you would have still made lots of money.

Of course the people who had to withdraw it because they were retired were fucking screwed.

And yes vanguard SP500 is decent. I've always went with SPY but if I had to do it again Vanguard has better expense ratios.

...

Is there an eu equivalent of s&p500? Can non amerifats save shekels too?

I agree, but that doesn't change the fact that the poster is also a retard who had the means to plan for a rainy day and failed to. Just because someone else got an unfair gimme doesn't mean you get to expect it too. Life isn't fair, but some people do in fact cause their own hardship themselves through being morons.

still better than whatever god forsaken shithole youre from.

>Life isn't fair
I agree, If you are a retard on wall st you are forgiven and guburmunt bails you out, If you are a middle class retard you are not

I just wish we promoted the same personal responsibility to our overlords.

Your education system spoon feeds you that america is #1, hence you get triggered and sperg out, when you someone else can have it better than you. Its hard to convince people to accept zero paid vacation, no maternity leave etc unless you convince them there are no better alternatives.

Eh. I have a friend in Holland who had the same question. The problem is that Europe taxes capital gains way different than they do in the USA so your system usually poops on investors.

However, from my understanding if there are stock brokers in your country, they usually trade in US stocks because they are so popular and the the euro indexes are actually in US dollar.

Again, you would need to talk to a broker in your country and ask them about taxes.

Here in the USA long term capital gains are around 15%, but if someone told me in Europe they were 30-40% I wouldn't be surprised.

So anyways ask your local broker.

If it were me, I'd invest in USA anyways since their system is going to have less taxes on businesses than Europe, but if you get a bonus for investing locally maybe that would be better.

Again I'm only familiar with US system.

I live in America and that picture is accurate.

Thank you finance bro
My inheritence will be about 450-500k $ depending on the tax situation, I want to put all my money on some index fund and live off my days as a NEET.

Yeah. With that much money you should get an CFA advisor just in case though.

If you are living off it, then the investment strategy is a bit different as not only do you need to make enough to grow the portfolio to beat inflation and then have some left over to grow the portfolio.

So you would need a mix of bonds (which do not decrease in value and have a fixed income) and a stock mix. Basically the bonds would be a guaranteed income while the stocks will go up and down depending on market.

Like the example I had before, if you put everything into the S&P 500 index and there was a 2008 crash again and you need to withdraw money to live off of, then its just a bad situation.

If you have another source of income and you can wait out the recession before withdrawing then you will not lose money and maximize growth.

Also its hard to create an income with just 500K. For our degree we did a portfolio worth $1.7 million for a simulation so people could live off it from 65 to 95 and put two kids through private college. You need more than 10% return (more like 12%) and passive indexes won't give you that.

SSI is a lot more insidious as to its purpose.

Vanguards target retirement funds are like that say far as I know, mix of stocks and bonds

>Also its hard to create an income with just 500K. For our degree we did a portfolio worth $1.7 million for a simulation so people could live off it from 65 to 95 and put two kids through private college. You need more than 10% return (more like 12%) and passive indexes won't give you that.

Damit, I have no gf no kids so thats allright but man I though I could live off from 500k, I don't want to work reeeeeeee

I will inherit 500k through selling my parents houses, we have 3 of them, and 500k would be after the sale tax etc. Maybe I'll just rent out the two and live in the other

Actually come to think about it depending on your state, you could just invest in a mix of municipal bonds which are not only tax free, but also usually reliable.

I know of funds that give 6.5% so if you invest $500K into that you could make $32,000 a year or so. Of course that isn't that much and you had no left over money to grow the portfolio to beat inflation, but if you lived frugally I don't see why you couldn't just passive it.

However, I would not recommend putting all bonds into municipals as sometimes cities and local municipalities do go bankrupt on occasion (terrible idea to invest in Detroit bonds).

With $500K you can easily get a CFA to look at it (make sure they are certified and not some random dude) and they can make a mix depending on your risk tolerance.

Yeah. Someone asked me whether its better to sell their house or to rent it out.

From the calculation I did with local rent prices (and they owned the home) they made roughly 10% after taxes and estimated repair upkeep where as if they invested in bonds they'd make 5% (they didn't want to invest in stocks and I wasn't going to make them).

But it will require you to be a land lord. Honestly, that's not hard to do if you maintain the papers and contracts and respond to the repairs (just get angie's list).

But you have to deal with people and you will get shitty tenants on occasion. I have a few family members than run rental properties.

But normally you don't have to do something every day so you can be busy with something else.

But again it depends on your area and rent prices.

If rental income is less than say 7% of the house per year then its better to just sell the house and invest it.

>$32,000 a year or so. Of course that isn't that much
thats plenty for me. My only problem would be inflation, If 32k becomes 20k in 20 years Yeah I'm fucked, might just sit on the houses. The reaason I want to avoid this is due to the ones you talked about because I hate human interraction, they don't pay, they shit in the sink etc.

thanks so much for the help financebro, If I make my neet dreams come true I will eat a tendie for you.

No problem. Oh and you should know that if you hate dealing with people, you can hire property management businesses to handle the tenants. One of my aforementioned relatives does it for properties that are way too far out to drive to in a reasonable amount of time.

But this really depends on your area and what rates they will give you.

And to sum this up... In our society, if you have enough money you can just have people do everything for you and sit on your butts all day and still make enough income to not only increase your own wealth but continue to do nothing for the rest of your life other than signing papers etc etc. I haven't reach that point, but I am starting my own business where I manage IP and work for hire materials.

Its still work I guess, but it's mostly moving money around again.

If I was straight up poor and uneducated I would never have though to do this.

>Also its hard to create an income with just 500K. For our degree we did a portfolio worth $1.7 million for a simulation so people could live off it from 65 to 95 and put two kids through private college. You need more than 10% return (more like 12%) and passive indexes won't give you that.
well this holds only for normies. As a celibate in a suburb of a small european city, I can live with 15k/year, for bills, rent, taxes, but not counting a car. good thing I want to stay this way.

>In our society, if you have enough money you can just have people do everything for you and sit on your butts all day and still make enough income to not only increase your own wealth but continue to do nothing for the rest of your life other than signing papers etc etc. I haven't reach that point, but I am starting my own business where I manage IP and work for hire materials.

Yeah thats my dream, I like capitalism because they allow NEETS. Under socialism they would force me to work / go to gulag (i'm sure the nomenclature could live off as neets but you get what I mean). I hope you can achieve it too, so you can enjoy the fine things in life (anime,vidya etc)

>Its still work I guess, but it's mostly moving money around again.
Too many people try to justify their existence, don't do that. You don't need to to something useful. Hell the best thing is to do nothing and make money which I'm hope to achieve.

But I'm glad that someone inside(or soon to be) the finance biz can call the bullshit as it is. Nothing is more pathetic than some rust belt blue collar who works 60 hours a week preaching just world theory to you.
Wagecucks, when will they learn.

which country ?

france

also, this holds before the new unknown taxes that macron is planning

Why wait, user?

Basically any local stock index fund does the same thing since they all tend to correlate to the world market. I've got 20% increase in the past year with OMX Helsinki 25, it should average out at around 6% annually in the long run. Nordnet is handy for scandis since there are zero fees if you just stick to the basic index fund.

>Why exactly do I have to pay for someone's retirement just because he wasn't smart enough to save when he was younger?

Social Security already comes out of your paycheck. That's what the ponzi scheme is about.

Because my health is still good.

Seems so.

>boomers are retiring now
>need more young people to pay for boomers' pensions

Where the fuck is all the tax money those boomers paid?

50's too early. I say 65 is a good year unless you have some debilitating disease.

>All it does is basically force people to put money up for savings
Guess what happens when a large, centralized entity forces people to """store""" money into a centralized fund managed by said entity?

Said entity will inevitably start abusing it.

>The problem now is that people are living much longer on average but retire relatively early, which kinda thins out the pot.
That contradicts what you said earlier though.

If all SS did was store your pension money for you, it wouldn't even matter if the next generation consisted of literally 5 people; your money would still be safe.

Pensions/Social security were set up during times where most folks were having 6 children to a head and died relatively young following retirement. The idea of it was not to work old people to death so they could actually retire with some dignity if they weren't rich.

The following generations that didn't have many kids retired early and lived for much longer are the problem (in addition to the benefits they secure for themselves when working for the government directly - since the amount of 'government jobs' has also increased rapidly over these generations in addition to the amount of pension they receive)

The result is the government spending around 60% of its budget on entitlements in the USA for example (some 60-70 percent of that is social security) and a very similar story for developed nations around the world. The only solution is to perpetually increase the size of the economy by whatever means possible, push back the retirement age or to actually reform the system to prevent borrowing. Other methods like Superannuation in Australia haven't worked (cutting 10% off of your income without tax and putting it towards a trust fund involuntarily until you're old enough to retire) because people want access to that money ASAP and they blow the entire thing as soon as they get it)

It really has become a Ponzi scheme now though. Boomers were far too numerous to resume the existing social security/pension scheme especially when they were having so fewer kids. The US is particularly bad where boomers stand to gain more in social security than they ever paid in taxes - but in every developed country it's the same story: Increase in government jobs which leads to an increase in the cost of entitlements when they retire. Most of us will be lucky to get the benefits given to the boomers when we're in our late 70's if the system hasn't completely collapsed by then.

Reminder that Boomers will die withing 15 years so it is too late to do anything now. You can just wait and things will get better for the society, but not for the generations before 2000.

bunp

This is what literally everybody says desu. It's like those NEETs on /v/ that say they'll kill themselves when their parents die. Everyone knows they aren't going to do shit.

In shareholders' pockets