As of this coming Friday, I will have paid my maximum social security contribution for the year... Yay, I am not being stolen from as much starting next week.
And yes, if you're a smart boy you can figure out how much I made this year from that. I don't really care. My salary is actually published by my company anyway, since I'm a "person of responsibility" under Sarbanes Oxley.
Now if only they would stop stealing the other 26.85% (20% approximate income tax after deductions, plus 1.45% medicare, plus approximately 5.4% Idaho income tax after deductions).
If I've calculated it right, up to today I've actually under-witheld by about $3,000 but the rest of the year should more than make up for that (they're going to kill me on some cash payments later in the year, with 28% federal and 5.4% state. That should more than cover my total liability for the year).
I made 20% on my investments last year (yeah I know, good year) but my moving 10 year average is 13%; including all losses in that time period, which involved two major crashes and a couple of minor ones. That's better than the average investor of course. The 50 year moving average for a well managed pension fund is about 8%; but if you watch the market psychology, you can grab a couple extra percent here and there every year (at a slightly larger risk of course. I lost $7,000 in the last month for example... a little bit more than a more conservative pension fund would have).
My employers and I have made the maximum social security contribution each year. That's currently just over $11,000 but it's been adjusted up a few times in the last 10 years (and slightly down for 2011); so let's treat that conservatively as a constant dollar contribution.
Hmmm... 10 years 13% annualized rate of return on $11,000 annual contributions and reinvestments... That would have been worth about $260,000 (more than double the funding contribution). Even at the average 8% return, that would be $195,000 (a little less than double)
And yet people are still against private accounts...
