CAN SOMEONE PLEASE CONFIRM...

[gfjwilmde]

this rumour I heard today. While I was in New York, I took a trip out to Long Island to pay my respects to my father. I then went to Brooklyn, NY to check in on my mother. While on the LIRR, I was talking to two conductors about job opening and whether they pay into railroad retirement like some of us do. They informed me that they heard or seen on the news that Bush plans to end railroad retirement and funnel all our money into the social security system. If this is true, then I implore all you, "RAILROADERS", to now stand up against this regime and demand of your representative to squa***his. NOW IS THE TIME FOR US TO TAKE THE NECESSARY ACTIONS TO THWART THIS IDIOT'S IDIOLOGIES AND THOSE OF HIS CORPERATE HENCHMEN!!!!!!!!!! Our future is at stake and if that's not worth fighting for, then you get what you deserve. I can remember when Bush Sr. downsized the military and I got caught up in it. I can remember sleeping in my car as I traveled up and down the east coast looking for work. Until, that day I started working for Amtrak and I never wanted to experience that again. If this knucklhead is allowed to take our only means (for some of us) of having anything to retire with when we leave the railroad, we may not even have a car to sleep in. WAKE UP PEOPLE AND REGONIZE THE "R E A L" ENEMY OF OUR UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE!!!


Glenn
A R E A L RAILROADER....A D I S S A P P O I N T E D AMERICAN!!!!

[Anonymous]

Yes and the scab (BLE) now part of the Teamsters has their way the Teamsters pension fund will get their meathooks into the fund to bail out is fraud plagued pension fund.

Anoth reason that the present administration is on the road to having the LORDS and the SERFS.


Ringer246
God Bless the Great Northern

[greyhounds]

QUOTE: Originally posted by gfjwilmde

this rumour I heard today. While I was in New York, I took a trip out to Long Island to pay my respects to my father. I then went to Brooklyn, NY to check in on my mother. While on the LIRR, I was talking to two conductors about job opening and whether they pay into railroad retirement like some of us do. They informed me that they heard or seen on the news that Bush plans to end railroad retirement and funnel all our money into the social security system. If this is true, then I implore all you, "RAILROADERS", to now stand up against this regime and demand of your representative to squa***his. NOW IS THE TIME FOR US TO TAKE THE NECESSARY ACTIONS TO THWART THIS IDIOT'S IDIOLOGIES AND THOSE OF HIS CORPERATE HENCHMEN!!!!!!!!!! Our future is at stake and if that's not worth fighting for, then you get what you deserve. I can remember when Bush Sr. downsized the military and I got caught up in it. I can remember sleeping in my car as I traveled up and down the east coast looking for work. Until, that day I started working for Amtrak and I never wanted to experience that again. If this knucklhead is allowed to take our only means (for some of us) of having anything to retire with when we leave the railroad, we may not even have a car to sleep in. WAKE UP PEOPLE AND REGONIZE THE "R E A L" ENEMY OF OUR UNITED STATES AND THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE!!!


Glenn
A R E A L RAILROADER....A D I S S A P P O I N T E D AMERICAN!!!!

NO! You don't understand! Bush wants to divert ALL Railroad Retirement Funds and ALL Social Security funds to FOUR PEOPLE he knew at Yale. To make up for this HE'S going to raise the retirement age to 96 1/2! Then HE'LL force everyone to sleep not in, BUT UNDER, their car.

While HE'S doing this HE'LL also be sending EVERY MANUFACTURING JOB to CHINA and taking voting rights away FROM ANYONE who isn't a white Christian male making AT LEAST $250,000/year.

And HE hates Amtrak. HE lies awake at night thinking of ways to DESTROY it.

But he's good to his dogs.

[jeaton]

Glen

They may have been yanking your chain. I look at the news items posted on the UTU site. A couple of recent items on the interest in changing Social Security do not make any reference to Railroad Retirement. But stay alert.

Ken

That plan sounds far too complex for President Bush.

Jay

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by greyhounds


While HE'S doing this HE'LL also be sending EVERY MANUFACTURING JOB to CHINA

Just to clear this up, Bush inheirited This from the Clinton's. Billy Joe Bob opened this can of worms, don't put this on Bush, he's trying to clean up the mess.

As for the social security deal, I think they were pulling your leg. Bush's Plan calls for semi-privatizing the current system into something similar to a 401k plan. this allows the individual to put money in and get a bigger return out of it, opposed to the current system, where a person puts money in and will get nothing out of it.

And don't get me started on Unions, they're the reason manufacturing jobs are going overseas in the first place.

[Randy Stahl]

Not again,!!! what, they try this every 5-6 years or so ?
Randy

[arbfbe]

Generally, what comes up is a way to streamline government and reduce expenses by combining the administration of Railroad Retirement by abolishing the RRB and letting the Social Security Administration dole out the railroad benefits. There is not commonly a move to just merge all the funds since there is the Tier 1 and Tier 2 components of Railroad Retirement.

The Teamsters qualifying for a railroad retirement is a red herring thrown out by the UTU and denied by both the Teamsters and the BLE.

Both changes would require an act of Congress to be enacted. These are things to keep a look out for but neither seems to be on the radar at this time.

Alan

[arbfbe]

Steamerfan,

Wow, you are so far off base as to be commical except thinking like that is what got us the current President.

The statement that you never get back the Social Security you put in is akin to the idea that the $20 bill you deposit in the bank is not the $20 bill you get back when you get your Christmas Club payout. NO ONE that live more than 5 or so years past their retirement ever gets back LESS money than they paid into Social Security during their working years. While privatization proponents like to point out that an investor can make more money in the stock market than Social Security makes on the investment of your money they invest. First, that is account the law specifies how Social Security funds are "invested" and that is currently in government papers that allows the Federal Treasury to run. The Republicans are just as big abusers of this cheap cash fund slush fund as the Democrats. The privatizers also fail to note that the true return on investment on Social Security is the money you get back compared to what you put in. If you live to 75 or 80 your individual roi for your total SSI contributions is really quite high and the longer you live the better it gets. The problem with privatization is that when the money you have privatized runs out so does your income. If you live to be 286 years old you will still get a Social Security check every month. The money Bush wants to give you to invest comes from the money needed to support people retiring soon. Removing that income from SSI funds only adds to the problems in the future. The same benefits to individuals can be accompolished by increasing the contribution limits to IRAs and 401k plans. I have got an older IRA that I cannot contribute to account the income limits that have not been tied to inflation, remove those and I can contribute to that to supplement my RR Retirement incime in the future.

If you think W inherited this from Clinton then remember he inherited it from Reagan and the idea has been around a lot longer than that. It is not a new idea at all.

Unions are the cause of jobs going overseas? I guess if you want to work at third world wages and benefits then the jobs can stay here in the US. Believe me that is the course business wants you to take here. Look at manhole covers in the streets for those that say India on them. They have made quite an impact on the American market. They are made in backyards all over India on contract to larger companies. Anyone can buy pig iron and wood to pour these at their own home and sell them on international markets. Of course if your sand mold fails and molton metal spills out and burns off one of your legs or burns down your house you are on your own. Is that the way you want to work in the USA? If there weren't unions your current wages would be lower than they are, your retirement and health insurance would be your own problem. There would be no child labor laws, no OT provisions and likely a much smaller middle class in this country. Pull your head out and look around. The unions are not the problem, foreign labor rates is the problem. Perhaps your job is not exportable but then, think again, your employer is looking for a way to do that.

[railman]

...and the money you pay into Social Security isn't going to you, that's right...it's paying for the people collecting! When you retire then it's your grandkids paying. Privatizing isn't how it's supposed to work...SOCIAL SECURITY....means no matter how stupid you've been with money, you get a guaranteed check every month, hence "SECURITY" and since it's paid for by society, "SOCIAL". Think about it.

If someone wants to set aside money to put in stocks, great. However, the point of SS is to provide a stable additional income for retirees, etc.

[jeaton]

arbfbe-

Good explaination of a subject (SSI) that way too few people understand.

Jay

[Anonymous]

arbfbe,

I wasn't meaning to say that the money would be there forever, just that it WOULD be there. the money I'm paying in now, by all accounts, dem and rep, show that in fact i will not get a dime when i retire. Social security is going to be bankrupt in less than 20 years, when that happens, no one will get any money from it.

Bush is proposing a radical new approach based on a sound system that has been working privatly for decades. now 401k's may not be perfect for SS to use, but an adaption with safety built in is a logical choice to fix a dying system that was meant only to be a short term deppression era fix.

As for myunion comment, I'll use an example that happened here recently (of course there's several eample in my city alone). Recently Unions decided to strike for higher wages. what did they want? $30 an hour, compared to the $20 they were presently making. the mean wage is only $10 an hour in the city. the company fought for several months with them on it and finally just shut them out, and move the entire facilty overseas. I'm not a proponent of having overseas workers paid $2 a day, but really Unions have gotten so greedy that they're forcing corporations to just leave.

before Clinton lifted all the embargo's on China, Corprations were forced to sucomb to Union demands, but now they have an out, and take non-union jobs with them.

[wabash1]

the scab ble.... all i can say is the ble is keeping jobs. ( why would they want to get rid of the dues base they are getting now as conductors or when they become engineers) maybe that question should be addressed by the utu. as they sold out all of thier people. but wait you cant ask them the people to ask are in prison . i havent seen a job lost by the ble. ...Unless you want to take out of context what the utu says with out the rest of the story. but then again if you are blind and brain washed as the utu does its members who dont have common sense to think for themselves then you will believe the junk they spread. and think that the teamsters will take the pension . you deserve to run scared

[arbfbe]

Social Security will never go bankrupt as in no cash on hand. Everyone working has SSI deductions taken out every pay period. Employers also contibute (taxed) for each employee. So there are always funds there, the question is whether or not there will be enough to meet that month's obligations to the retirees. Bush's plan will reduce the incoming cash flow and provide future retirees with even less money to draw from.

Clinton did not remove the embargoes, Nixon did. The Clinton era saw most favored nation status for China. It seems that was pretty well supported on both sides of the aisles in Congress.

I am not sure of which union would be asking for a 50% raise in wage rates. Over the course of a multi year contract then the final raise might be in the 20% range. I would suspect there were many issues involved and perhaps exporting the jobs was the company's plan from the beginning. All you have to do is look at what the unions in the airline have done in the last year to see that unions are not the inflexible ogres they are presented to be. They have held their noses and taken pay cuts to make up for changing economic conditions as well as some measure of management shortsightedness.

[Anonymous]

Nixon didn't life the embargo's, he eased them a little, citing human rights problems toward complete removal of all trade restrictions. Clinton outright removed them all, ignoring the human rights problems.

Social security may always have money coming in, but what i pay in is being paid to someone else, not me. in 20 years, every Babyboomer will be drawing social security with half as many people paying in. in other words, the system will technically be bankrupt, as it's outflow will be significantly higher than it's inflow. either half the people on social security will not get checks, or all will recieve half what they are entitaled to.

the system is broke, Bush is offering a radical change to it to ensure that all people get the funds they are entitled to and to ensure that the entire social security system doesn't crash. barring these radical changes, the only alternative is to up retirement age and withhold social security until a higher age than it is presently, and not many people I know want to be working full time till they're 80.

arbfbe, we'll have to agree to disagree.

[jeaton]

SteamerFan

I don't know where you are getting the information you have for your understanding of Social Security, but I have to tell you that you have the story wrong. Not that I will place the blame on you. I think that much of the print media reporting on this subject is written by people who can't balance their checkbook.

Currently, the total Social Security taxes withheld from all wage earners and the matching amount paid by employers exceeds the amount being paid out in Social Security benefits. The excees funds are used to purchase U.S. Government Bonds, which in turn pay interest to the Social Security Trust Fund. Why U.S. Government Bonds? Simple. There is no other place in the WORLD where the money can be deposited with an absolute quarantee of repayment.

Now, current forecast say that in about 20 years, the SS benefits paid out will start to exceed the amount collected in SS taxes. At that time Social Security will have to start to cash in some of those U.S. Government Bonds to pay the benefits in full. Now, to pay out the ca***o Social Security, the U.S. Government may have to get money from other kinds of taxes or borrow the money from somebody else.

In another 20 years or so, all of the government bonds held by Social Security will have been cashed in. Social Security taxes paid in may still pay a very high percentage of scheduled benefits. However, in order to have Social Security taxes and benefits in balance, there will either have to be a reduction in benefits, an increase Social Security taxes or a combination of both. The ONLY thing that could be done to change that would be to pay out the benefit shortfall from other US Government money sources, i.e., taxes or borrowings.

The latest scheme to "privatize" Social Security is something like letting the wage earner put 1 to 3% of the current 6.2% SS tax in investment accounts of the employees choosing. If you want to know how much that will be worth to you at retirement, take your paycheck to an investment advisor and let him run some numbers for you. Just remember, there is not going to be any guarantee that your investment will be worth anything when you retire. Also, under this scheme the guaranteed portion of SS benefits could be on the order of 1/2 the present level.

By the way, if you are over age 25 and a wage earner, you should be receiving a statement from Social Security giving you a estimate of your benefits at retirement age UNDER THE PRESENT LAW. You might want to compare that benefit to your current income and start figuring how to make up that shortfall.

Jay

Jay

[mloik]

jeaton and arbfbe,

Thanks to both of you guys. Nice explanations of a complex social mathematical issue.

Too bad: Rush and O'Reilly probably don't participate in this Forum.

ML

[csxengineer98]

the overall problem with SS is the fact that the government has no real intention of fixing the problem... it is almost always a sure fire way to get elected when you mention any plan in your campain spech on "fixing" SS....second... i too have heard the rumors of them taking over the RRR....but from what the old heads tell me..that has been talked about since they hired out 20 and 30+ years ago....so i dont hold alot of faith in the rumor of that nature...
but as far as fixing SS...the only way to "fix" it would be pass a law that makes national government legusatoers such as the house and senat be required to collect it insted of thier pention plans...you see how fast the money comes back into the system if they have to pay for it out of thier own pocets.....
just my thought
csx engineer

[greyhounds]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mloik

jeaton and arbfbe,

Thanks to both of you guys. Nice explanations of a complex social mathematical issue.

Too bad: Rush and O'Reilly probably don't participate in this Forum.

ML

Why? With me here, they'd be redundant.

1) There is no social security trust fund.
2) All 12.4% comes out of what you earn - there is no real employer match
3) The Federal Government can't lend itself money by buying its own bonds
4) The Federal Government can't pay interest to itself on those bonds
5) You loose money with Social Security compared to a private investment
6) Social Security is no more secure than private accounts
a) If the US economy isn't any good, governement bonds won't be worth the paper they're printed on
b) If the US economy is good, we'll make more with almost any other investment
c) If someone is very risk adverse they can always put their private Social Security money in US Government Bonds - but without the middleman.