LJ Down

Live Journal is down. They had a major power failure and are trying to get all the servers back online (according to the message that pops up). It's disappointing since that's the main way I keep up with what certain friends are up to, by reading their Live Journal posts. Ah well.

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I just heard a statement from President Bush trying to explain his Social Security reform ideas. He mentioned that something (preferably his plan) must be done because as it stands now there will be no more funds left for Social Security payments by 2018. Just the other night on the news, however, I heard it reported that the Social Security Administration claims they have enough to function as is until 2042, and if nothing is changed, then after that date, they'll have enough to pay almost 75% of promised benefits to each person. This is a completely different statement from what President Bush said. Either he's confused, they're confused, someone is spinning facts to suit his (or their) purpose (aka misinformation), or I just don't understand all the details and specifics (which is probably the case).

Both President Bush and the SSA are saying changes need to be made, but President Bush seems to know something about the SSA's funding that they do not since he's claiming we'll be in the red by 2018. The SSA, from what I understand, is stating that the incoming funds will be negative compared to what they're paying out (which might be what President Bush means when he stated they'll be in the red) but they will still have a positive outflow of cash.

The SSA has a FAQ set up which answers common questions about Social Security's future.

If anyone can point me to sources which do a better job of explaining it, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.