Pension Crisis Quotes

The only reason there is a crisis about Social Security in the US and pensions in Europe and Japan is that you cannot maintain a "Ponzi" scheme indefinitely. We have collected from today's young to pay today's old and counted on tomorrow's young to keep doing so. That was a fine scheme as long as the number of young people was rising faster than old people. When that ratio comes to an end, such a system also has to end.

After World War II, there were a lot of pension funds in Europe that were fully funded, but they were pressured to hold a lot of government debt. There was a lot of inflation, and the value of all those assets fell. Those pension funds couldn't honor their promises to the people.

The story of Detroit's bankruptcy was simple enough: Allow capitalism to grow the city, campaign against income inequality, tax the job creators until they flee, increase government spending in order to boost employment, promise generous pension plans to keep people voting for failure. Rinse, wash and repeat.

I think that when it comes to Social Security, all of us want to make sure that our senior citizens can retire with dignity and respect. And everybody has to be open-minded in thinking how do we firm up a system that, in fact, is going to be in difficulty in the coming years.

If this is the degree of inflation planned for in advance, the real outcome is indeed likely to be such that most of those who will retire at the end of the century will be dependent on the charity of the younger generation. And ultimately not morals but the fact that the young supply the police and the army will decide the issue: concentration camps for the aged unable to maintain themselves are likely to be the fate of an old generation whose income is entirely dependent on coercing the young.

There is a valid nationwide sentiment of concern over public pensions, and poor funding ratios are viewed negatively by financial markets.

The biggest drag on global growth in the coming decade will be demographics in the developed world.

If we do not act now to strengthen Social Security, the system that so many depend upon today will be unable to meet its promises to tomorrow's retirees, and it will burden our children and grandchildren with exhaustive taxes.

Our nation's Social Security Trust Fund is depleting at an alarming rate, and failure to implement immediate reforms endangers the ability of Americans to plan for their retirement with the options and certainty they deserve.

Social Security is fine for those at or near retirement today. For those receiving their checks today, don't worry. It's going to be there for you. For those that are nearing their retirement years, don't worry, it's going to be there for you. But for your kids - for your boy and my boy, and for their children, for our kids and grandkids, it's a real big question as to whether or not the system's going to be there.

But I'm saying we are loosing the people who are going to pay my social security. And that bothers me.

Without significant reform, the Social Security Administration will be legally and financially unable to pay full promised benefits within a generation.

Aside from the poor example it sets, the federal government enables reckless spending on public-employee pensions by offering hope of assistance from Washington if things get bad enough.

There are tons of examples of U.K. and European mistakes. A classic one is pensions. That's obviously not an America-specific thing. The British and European economies are suffering under the weight of what is to come. The next great Ponzi scheme after Madoff is probably pensions.

But here's what I would tell people of my generation. I turn 40 this year. There isn't going to be a Social Security. There isn't going to be a Medicare when you retire. Forget about what your benefit is going to look like. There isn't going to be one if we don't make some reforms to save that program now.

We know that Medicare is set to go bankrupt in 2024 with no action, and social security is set to be insolvent by 2037.

The real Social Security crisis is that the government does not have the money to redeem its IOUs.

Social Security and Medicare are necessary safety nets, but they are nearing insolvency as fewer pay in, more take out, and more take out more.

The multiple failings of our flawed financial sector are jeopardizing, not only the retirement security of our nation's savers but the economy in which our entire society participates.

The retirement financial crisis will affect far more people than baby boomers, and certainly it will affect their children. Most of the retirees and near-retirees with whom we talked, said that they were extremely reluctant to have to depend on their children financially, or to think of moving in with their children. But the mere fact that they were discussing those issues indicates that some of them have already figured out that that is what lies ahead for them.

The president's claim that Social Security is going broke is misleading at best. The sky is not falling, although there is no doubt that the system needs to be strengthened.

Pension reform can be hard to talk about. In the long run, reform now means fewer demands for layoffs and less draconian measures in the future. It's in the best interest of all Californians to fix this system now.

Legislators should demand that we not go through the entire pension reform debate just to apply a band-aid when this patient needs a quadruple bypass.

The rate of return on Social Security for people nearing retirement is about 1.5 percent. By the time young children like mine are ready to retire, that rate of return will be a negative percentage.

Social Security's future has gotten worse, and each year we delay reform adds to the cost we are pushing off onto our children.