Why Is Bernie Madoff In Jail?

I am in favor of younger workers having an array of options from which to choose, index funds, bond funds, mutual funds and other investment that are diversified. Even the choice of funds would have to be diversified
half agree.

I think that only a certain %tage of SS contributions should be "privatized"...
1. to keep the fund at an operating level
2. to protect young workers from themselves.
 
Nobody wants to pay taxes. What do you pay, maybe 30% of your gross income at the most when you include local sales taxes. Then you have to take into accountall the different deductions and tax credits and many people are paying average rates between 15-25%.

30% is not that much money to keep order in our nation. To have police, fire, trash pickup, unemployment, protection from foreign invasion, and basically keepthings running smoothly.

I will say that there needs to be a cost of living adjustment in the income tax calculation. Aside from that, 30% before taking deductions is not much money topay for all the services that we receive.
 
SS is so jacked up, freakin sucks to see such a significant portion of my paycheck being thrown away (away from me at least). I think Team Econ is starting tobecome Team Libertarians, haha. Again to quote Friedman, "the government solution to a problem is usually worse than the problem"
 
Originally Posted by cguy610

Nobody wants to pay taxes. What do you pay, maybe 30% of your gross income at the most when you include local sales taxes. Then you have to take into account all the different deductions.

30% is not that much money to keep order in our nation. To have police, fire, trash pickup, unemployment, protection from foreign invasion, and basically keep things running smoothly.

I will say that there needs to be a cost of living adjustment in the income tax calculation. Aside from that, 30% before taking deductions is not much money to pay for all the services that we receive.
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I lol'd

30% is more than enough for the government to provide essential services. The federal government collected about $2.6 trillion in taxes in 2008 alone. Youtelling me that's not enough?
 
Originally Posted by Grizzlyboy

Originally Posted by General Johnson

Originally Posted by Essential1

damn liberals wanting to help people... Abolish all taxes




Whaaa... ???

How many of you wait for tax returns? That's something else I shake my head at...

I'm no tax protester, even though I know what's up, but I'd rather have my money in my pocket and owe. At least then, I have the option of using that money to make more money over the course of a year...
You have to understand though, The country is using our money to fund the irresponsible actions of other countries and lazy $%% people. Where as to the majority of us who are dumping 2-300 bucks month into this crap will not see a return worth mentioning.




I'm not sure you're addressing me, so I'm a bit confused.

Instead of dumping your $200-300 into taxes every month, why not claim a high number of allowances and set that money (that you would otherwise lose) aside?Even if you only put it into a savings account, you're still coming up. You're not earning any interest on the money the government is taking fromyou...

Then, when you DO pay taxes at the end of the year, you've at least made some money off what you're going to pay the anyway.
 
Yeah big tax return is not something to strive for but so many "brag" about it
 
Originally Posted by dmxfury

Yeah big tax return is not something to strive for but so many "brag" about it

Some people have a hard time saving when the money is in their hands. It can be easier to have government "hold it" for them and give them one biglump sum at tax time.
 
but generally hose people don't save it anyway, those are the ones that spend it at Best Buy
 
since im an econ major i actually learned about SS and the problems with it.. i have thought about comparing SS to a Ponzi scheme. the main difference betweenSS and a ponzi schene is that the people know about what is happening to their money with SS
 
Dmx can you rec. Any sort of loopholes for ss or a way for me to put the money somewhere else? At least I'll know my money isn't being wasted on dumbprograms
 
SS needs to be looked at by the government, and reformed into something that helps everyone that it takes from. At this point, I'm giving away money for noreason, other than to 'help' those that are retired and didnt plan well. I'm not sure what the best way to change this system is, but I agree on alot of points that Rex brought up:
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum

...Because of that, I am in favor of younger workers having an array of options from which to choose, index funds, bond funds, mutual funds and other investment that are diversified. Even the choice of funds would have to be diversified. Also, as a worker gets older, after say 25 or 30 years of working, there would be requirements that would move more and more of that SS account money away from funds that are exposed to stock market volatility and into bond markets and and money markets have the money that was built up over the first two or three decades in mutual and index funds be kept safe in even more stable investments than that worker had when he was younger.
This entire paragraph seems like a good idea. The only thing, is that I dont see every young person who is working, knowing how to set up anyfunds.

Or, **+* it, let the government set up their own form of a 401K for everyone. Instead of putting money into a 'group' fund, let that persons money getdeposited into a private account run and monitored by the gov't.
 
Originally Posted by yep617

Originally Posted by Fede DPT





For the record I am a Democrat in a low financial bracket who has no problem paying taxes to help others, but I do get frustrated when tax money isn't used effectively.


Does it bother you that success will be punished?
Explain what you mean by "punished" and I will be more comfortable answering.




How about being excessively taxed because person A makes more than person B. Is that fair? Justify for me, please. I own a business, I write peoples checks,what good is that if you RAISE my taxes? I will generate less revenue because of my HIGHER taxes, so what that mean? You're fired.


Liberals can learn alot about the trials and tribulations of Eldridge Cleaver.


Barack Obama has used coercion on big business to get what he wants, threatening them to take bailout money. This joke of an administration will now be goingafter small community banks as well.


Central bank + Boom-and-Bust monetary policy = Our current situation


You cant have regulation and a Free Market, it doesnt make sense. A Free Market isnt free if there is regulation. Meanwhile the average salary for a Gov'tworker is around $75k a year, which went up 2% from last year. Now, how does that make sense? We are in a terrible economic crisis and Gov't workers get apay INCREASE?


AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE.
 
dmxfury wrote:
SS is so jacked up, freakin sucks to see such a significant portion of my paycheck being thrown away (away from me at least). I think Team Econ is starting to become Team Libertarians, haha. Again to quote Friedman, "the government solution to a problem is usually worse than the problem"
We need to recruit some more people, some of our other members have stopped posting or having our team as one of their signatures. I liked it whenwe had people, who were interested in economics and public policy and were more left leaning.

I suppose we still have, between us, intellectual diversity. You always quote Milton Friedman and I always quote Thomas Sowell and Friedrich Hayek. You likethe Chicago School angle the most and I like the Austrian School of Thought the most.


And once and for all, to those who say that SS is more up front than Madoff's scheme, you are right. What is important is that Madoff could not forcepeople into his scheme so he lied and SS is only up front about what it will return us because it can force us to all to be "investors" in this"fund." If SS was not funded through mandatory tax withdrawals, would any of you give it a dime of your money?
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum

dmxfury wrote:
SS is so jacked up, freakin sucks to see such a significant portion of my paycheck being thrown away (away from me at least). I think Team Econ is starting to become Team Libertarians, haha. Again to quote Friedman, "the government solution to a problem is usually worse than the problem"
We need to recruit some more people, some of our other members have stopped posting or having our team as one of their signatures. I liked it when we had people, who were interested in economics and public policy and were more left leaning.

I suppose we still have, between us, intellectual diversity. You always quote Milton Friedman and I always quote Thomas Sowell and Friedrich Hayek. You like the Chicago School angle the most and I like the Austrian School of Thought the most.


And once and for all, to those who say that SS is more up front than Madoff's scheme, you are right. What is important is that Madoff could not force people into his scheme so he lied and SS is only up front about what it will return us because it can force us to all to be "investors" in this "fund." If SS was not funded through mandatory tax withdrawals, would any of you give it a dime of your money?








half agree.

I think that only a certain %tage of SS contributions should be "privatized"...
1. to keep the fund at an operating level
2. to protect young workers from themselves.


I understand where you are coming from and I agree with both points.
1. If you are under 25 or 30, you should no longer have to pay for current beneficiaries, workers over between 30 to retirement age should be paying some tocurrent beneficiaries and the younger you are the lower your burden for paying current beneficiaries. This way there can be a transition away from our currentdysfunctional system without simply defaulting on what we promised to retirees. The younger you are the less you should expect to the get from the traditionalSS but you get a bigger share of your paycheck withdrawals to have to yourself.

2. Hopefully that function would be served by presenting workers with a list of any fund or investment that is sufficiently conservative and diversified. Thenthe workers would have to pick at least 10 investment choices because a worker can only have 10% of his or income in any one investment at a given time. Bydoing this, workers would be protected from themselves if they have that impulse to take a lot of risk or are too lazy that they would not have taken the timeto invest and diversify. By giving workers a lot of options, it would insure quality through competition (because money would not be managed by only a few wellconnected financial groups who lobbied and won the SS contracts, it could be managed by potentially hundreds or thousands of funds and/or wealth managementgroups) and wide variety of option makes those investments safe because workers could have their SS money in 100 or 200 or even every approved investmentoption.

I do understand why some libertarians would be against any government controls over people's retirement, considering how poorly SS has been managed. Idisagree in this case because functionally, the investing is done through private means with private sector efficiency and the private sector's excellentlong run rates of return. Government's role would be simply making people invest a small part of their income, invest consistently through one'sworking life and not invest in risky investment vehicles.

I actually was lucky enough, when I was getting lunch a few weeks ago, to run into one of my former Economics professors and one of my favorite teachers in myentire life. We were discussing one of his papers that he was finishing and it was about "libertarian-paternalism," which is having government setparameters and guide people but give people a lot of freedom in decision making. My prof is pretty radical and calls libertarian paternalism a wedge or a slopethat leads to hard paternalism.

It took some courage to dissent from my professor, who taught me so much and changed how I see the world, but I did. On this specific issue of replacingtraditional SS, I do see value in government forcing people to make modest but consistent contributions to safe investments in order to establish a base fortheir nest egg. Generally, as much freedom as is practical and very limited government power is optimal but there are exceptions where a little more governmentinvolve can be optimal. What is good about privatized SS is that it keeps the government imposed discipline over saving for retirement but it gets workers, ofall income levels, a chance to get the great life long returns on mutual and index funds and other investments option that currently are beyond the reach ofworking class people because they do not have much disposable income and their FICA withdrawals are dumped into traditional SS.
 
he's a crook.

I think the real question isn't 'why is Madoff in jail' but rather why arent more Madoff's and some of these other institutions sharing hisfate or at least being reevaluated....whichever fits.
 
It is good to see you posting again.

Exactly, asking why he was in jail is just a rhetorical question. He committed a severe act of fraud and should be in jail. What is important here is that afar bigger ponzi scheme that involves all of us is underway and it is only able to get contributions through force, which, along with fraud are the basis ofcrimes that are criminal and heinous regardless of what the laws at the moment happen to say or not say.
 
lol thanks
I know and agree with you...been expressing and discussing the exact same thing with friends and family. just trying to add to your thread.
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the Madoff scandal is definitely just a microcosm.
 
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