So come on, state how much money you need extra each year?
I don’t know and I don’t care. Why does this issue anger you so much that it is literally all you ever post about? It’s on-topic here (for the first time ever) but your logic (and really warped understanding of economics) has been thoroughly debunked upthread. Yet somehow, you ignore everything that is said to you because you hate the idea of state pensions to a pathological degree.
TELL US HOW THE PENSIONS HURT YOU, NICKLE! THOSE BASTARDS! 
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Social security is an asset tax.
It’s take 20% of the wealth that people produce. It’s got no real wealth [unless you can write yourself an IOU].
It’s not working. Taking wealth, spending it is the root cause .
What’s needed is that the working man and woman does what the rich do. Invest their contributions, then they own the wealth, and they are safe.
Instead they have a debt that SS or the Welfare state in the UK, has accumulated.
What’s interesting about all the posts here is this.
No one will say how much is owed. The propose solutions but can’t state what the problem and cause is. They have the symptoms, not the cause.
By and large they haven’t. I’ve avoided them as much as possible.
Wealth inequality hurts people and you are proposing more of it.
Why?
I’ve proposed literally nothing up to this point. I have said that you are weirdly obsessed with this subject yet bizarrely unwilling to engage in discussion about it, where “discussion” actually involves listening to what people say and engaging with it.
Seriously, have you thought about getting professional help with this? You seem to be channeling so much completely unwarranted anger into your extreme dislike of the idea of state pensions (that no one else but you is getting so worked up about) that it is all you ever talk about. Perhaps you might want to look at where that anger comes from…?
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What exactly are you asking me? How much I, personally, need?
I don’t, currently, need any extra money right now. I’m making an okay living at the moment. In fact I have been making a clinically depressed friend’s car payments because she was otherwise unable to afford the car that allowed her to go to various temp jobs and to her psychologist.
This all changes if the ACA gets destroyed and my insurance company decides my pre-existing condition means they can drop me like a hot potato. Or if I should lose my job for more than a couple of months. Or if my spouse is unable to work – which is possible because she’s just had to go on an immunosuppressant and might have to start limiting her exposure to the public.
Or down the road if I want to retire. There are estimators for these things, and all of them say I needed to start saving/investing money about 15 years before I did. But I couldn’t because my wages were too low at the time; I was living paycheck-to-paycheck, driving a shitty car and eating ramen and relying on my parents to cover shortfalls. And there’s a fuckton of uncertainty about what the economy and the social safety net are going to look like in 15-20 years when I start thinking it’s time to stop working.
I am not an economist. But I’ve occasionally read some books. 
It’s pretty damned clear that we have the ability, as a civilization, to meet the needs of every member of our society – the old, the underpriveleged, those who are unable to work. But that means we have to play Robin Hood.
I’d be happy to take 44.8 billion dollars away from David Koch and distribute it to, say, the 1.4 million households with children who are below 50% of the official poverty level even counting SNAP benefits. It won’t be “enough” money but for many, it will mean the difference between life and death, and for some it will give them the ability to get OUT of poverty. And that money will cycle through the economy instead of sitting in a hoard. And that still leaves Koch a rich shithead with about a half a billion dollars to see him through the 10 years or less that he has left on the planet.
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Will their final benefit be double that of the person who pays $125K or will they both get the same benefit eventually?
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Why do you keep asking the same question but refusing all answers? Do you think you’ll get a better and different answer each time?
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Would you take 95% of every billionaire’s wealth, or just the ones who you believe are shitheads?
I would say that if my taxes go up to support underfunded pensions for people who make a lot more money than me, then I am being hurt. Otherwise, I’m not hurt at all.
Everyone.
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With the exception of JK Rowling, those are overlapping circles on the Venn Diagram.
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Is the final benefit of someone who earns $125K twice that of someone who earns $62.5K? Isn’t it biased towards low earners?
The U.K. state pension isn’t based on what you earned before retirement (other than meeting the required number of qualifying years). Everyone who qualifies gets the same payout.
I’ve never understood why SS/NI is treated differently from general taxation. I don’t see it as me paying into a pension scheme, just more redistribution.
I’m happy to pay more into SS to provide for people who need it more, is all. As far as funding my retirement, I’m not going to be a winner via SS anyway. It’s not a good investment for me personally but I don’t expect it to be.
I’m happy with them moving that payment ceiling up to wherever it needs to be to keep the system solvent. I don’t really care if they move the benefit ceiling up as well. Yeah, it’d be nice if they did.
I guess I’m just a sucker.
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All of 'em.
And my example was somewhat facetious, but still. I strongly believe there is some maximum amount of hoarded wealth that an individual or organization can have, beyond which it provides no practical benefit to anyone including its owner.
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What, really, you’re going to tell me that the 1,800 billionaires in the world mostly didn’t get their money via either inheritance or exploiting people?
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I dunno. I’m happy for a more progressive tax system. I make a lot more than many folks here and I’d be glad to pay more if I thought it was going to actual social good.
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I’m trying to get you to engage, and you haven’t. To quote you “I’ve proposed literally nothing up to this point.”
So why are you saying that I’m not engaging?
I said what’s going on. People are owed pensions. Can’t see anything controversial about that.
Next question, how much are they owed? That’s very difficult to find out, and its why I asked you if you and others knew. So far no one has come back with any answer. One person said how much profit they had made, but on the debt, zero.
So why?
And there’s a fuckton of uncertainty about what the economy and the social safety net are going to look like in 15-20 years when I start thinking it’s time to stop working.
My view, there is no uncertainty. People won’t be paid a pension
But I couldn’t because my wages were too low at the time; I was living paycheck-to-paycheck,
My guess is you are paying tax. The government takes first dibs. You get left to manage on the remainder. My view that’s the biggest problem the poor face.
But that means we have to play Robin Hood.
That’s what’s happened so far. That’s why I asked the question as to how much governments owe as a result of that.
It also gives you one important thing that you need to know in order to check if your idea of targeting those you don’t like will work.
So do you know how much social security owes?
Why do you care so much? Show us on the doll where the pension touched you.
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