For them, when the rich make investments in companies, it’s worker exploitation and an insidious plot to make rich people richer. When the poor have a chance to make investments in companies, it’s an insidious plot to transfer money from the investors to investment bankers.

Maybe there’s something to that argument regarding volume of investment or something that I’m not getting, but as it’s been formulated to me, it seems unpersuasive in the extreme.

Private retirement accounts have been tried in other countries like Britain, Chile, etc. The fees to administer these plans average about 20% of the assets.

Assuming the workers half of Social Security taxes is about $300 billion a year now (it will get much bigger), that’s $60 billion a year that will flow into the invetment bankers pockets under the current SS ‘reform’ plans.

You call that “unpersuasive in the extreme?” You must be Bill Gates!

Stop using phrases like “worker’s half”. That is just some social democrat lingo to pretend that somehow only half of your social security comes out of the paycheck and that we are socking your employer for the other half. Come on.

Why force people to create accounts for the republicans to loot? Why not just eliminate the tax and let people decide what to do with the extra money?

Isn’t that the libertarian way?

“Why not just eliminate the tax and let people decide what to do with the extra money?”

Precisely. Also means-test the benefits. That way Social Security becomes just a safety net for those who actually need it, not a fraudulent retirement plan.

Micha, if libertarians think that allowing the republicans to loot hundreds of billions of dollars is just a necessary evil on the way to eliminating SS entirely, they are fools.

Bankrupting the US government will lead to anarchy here and in the rest of the world, not a libertarian paradise. The desire of libertarians to become fiscal martyrs who don’t care who they take down with them makes them no better than Muslin fundementalists.

“Why force people to create accounts for the republicans to loot? Why not just eliminate the tax and let people decide what to do with the extra money?”

You’re right, and that’s the only right answer.

Do you actually favor it, or is this merely a cynical political tactic?

Between 2001 and 2004:

Corporate income taxes have fallen from 26.6% to 22.6%

Personal income taxes(excluding Social Security) have fallen from 14.2% to 10.8%

At the same time, the federal budget has increased 34%

Private Social Security accounts will actually increase the size of the federal budget. What is needed is cuts in the federal budget and increase in taxes to bring the system back into balance.

Anyone who proposes anything else is just selling something.

False Dilemma. What if anarchy is a libertarian paradise? Then we should want to bankrupt the government as quickly as possible.

The desire of libertarians to become fiscal martyrs who don’t care who they take down with them makes them no better than Muslin fundementalists.

Awesome. Agree with me or the terrorists win. I love that argument.

I’m an old school libertarian who believes in a balanced federal budget.

I’ve never met a libertarian who thinks that debt born by a thief is a more heinous crime than the act of theft itself. (With the moral implication that a person should steal from innocent third parties to pay his debts.) Can you name any prominent (or even not-so-prominent) libertarian thinker who shares your belief that taxes should be raised to balance the budget?

Hehe Micha, let me take a few guesses about you:

You are young. Early 20s?

You go to a college supported by the government.

When you go anywhere, you travel on roads built by the government.

When you flip a switch, power is delivered to you from a government built power plant.

When you use the bathroom, your shit is carried away by a government built sewer system.

And when you post in support of anarchy, you do so on the government developed and built internet.

But…you think all taxes are theft!

Hehe, live a little, gain some experience in the real world, and then talk about morals.

Libertarian ‘thinkers’ support cutting government spending before cutting taxes. Otherewise, libertarianism just becomes generational rape…