"Stupid. Careless.." *grrr...* Marty muttered angrily under his breath as he pulled his mini van over to the side of the road. His five year old daughter occupied the passenger sear next to him. "Wait here for a second." He told her as he opened the door to walk back in the road to gather up an old brush broom that someone had dropped there and place it on the side of the road. He trotted back to the car and jumped in in high bad humor. He started the car and accelerated down the highway at their previous speed. His daughter was quiet for about ten minutes and Marty was beginning to become worried that his bad attitude had scared her so he looked over to her side of the car. Wide, unblinking eyes greeted him. "Daddy?" she asked. "Did somebody hit a witch?"
Mwahahaha! I came up with that one completely on my own! It sounds like it should be in reader's digest...
Anyways, on to more important things... such as social security! What an interesting topic, I know. But I had this idea while brushing my teeth(yes today was my bi-annual brushing of the teeth day... hey! I'm just saving water! =P). My amazing idea was, what if the government auctioned off all of the social security to the highest bidder so as to take it out of government hands. So they have this auction and the person/company who bids the highest gets all of the social security network thing. So it's just like a privately owned retirement fund that everyone isn't forced to pay into. So everyone who had payed into social security can either get their money back or choose to continue paying it kinda like a retirement fund. This would free up the government and also it will allow people who don't want to pay social security to be able not to.
It's just a thought. Privately owned social security. Hmmm... I need some help on this one! Any ideas about it? Possible conflicts? I'm sure there are but as I said, it was just an idea...
-cheez out-
I don't have any ideas on the social security thing, but I do have a question regarding your blog entry. Where did that story in the beginning come from? It was cute, but incredibly random.... Anyway there's a creative writing section for ProgUsers now. Just so you know.
Oh it was just something that I came up with on the spot. You see, I was on my way back into town the other day and I saw this random broom laying in the middle of the road and I got to thinking, "what would I think if I was a kid who saw this broom..." and so I wrote the thing. Yeah, no it was just completely random. I do that sometimes...
-Cheez Out-
Totally cute opening.
But onto Social Security. Why would we want SS to be privatized? It is just putting it into the hands of people who are less stable than the government, if the government was unstable, and on the verge of collapsing or something, then I would understand the concern, but why now? Also, the government uses a Social Security number as an identification. If you were to sell SS numbers to a privatized company/person, the government would have to come up with another way to identify people. Names don't work because people have the same names. It would just be one more thing to remember, and worry about.
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"As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to excercise it, different opinions will be formed..."
James Madison, Federalist Paper # 10
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Well in response to your question about government not having a way to track people... I think that that's just a small issue that can be ammended by enstating some other form of identification. Anyways, I personally don't like being ID'd so yeah...
-Cheez Out-
Social Security is a huge unfunded liability. Liability being the operative word.
It has made promises to current and future retirees in excess of its assets (a bunch of dubious IOUs) and its future income (employment taxes). It is destined for insolvency.
Why would anybody pay money for something that was insolvent? It would be like being the last person to pay money into a Ponzi scheme.
The answer to the little girl should probably be that somebody named Obama hit a witch named Hillary.
Yes that was the big problem that I saw with the idea. WHO THE HECK WOULD BY IT?!!!! Yeah... that's the error in the theory... I was just hoping that someone would have a fix for it cuz I don't like social security. Or at least, I don't like being forced to pay it. Anyways... yup good point. =P
-Cheez Out-