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Special Report
Conscripts in a Ponzi Scheme
The upending truth about Social Security that no one — no one — is willing to face.
The spit turns slowly over the Social Security roasting fire but there is no whimpering from the children being cooked. Yet.
Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal (one of English literature’s great satires) for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or their country, and for making them beneficial to the public was: to eat them.
Our problem is almost precisely the reverse. We have too much food, as Mrs. Obama reminds us, and we have too few children: too few to guard the gates of Western civilization, too few to pay the bills coming due for the welfare state, primarily for Social Security and Medicare.
What to do? Two facts deserve our preliminary attention.
One. In the 2004 presidential election (a more typical election than the 2008 election) only 17 percent of the 18 to 29 year olds voted, meaning 83 percent didn’t bother to vote. That’s called potential.
Two: The youngest voters haven’t, recently, seemed to care much about even issues that directly affect them. When was the last time you heard about a student movement? Why is it, for example, that young people don’t lobby and vote to make the drinking age 18, which it was in many places until 1984? Perhaps buying alcohol with a fake ID out the back door stimulates sophistication, but it tends to stultify the exercise of civic responsibility.
Grownups may think that presidential elections are about important issues, but it’s not obvious that the kids care about policies at all. Oh, yes, they get caught up in the hoopla of a presidential campaign. But do they think that the policies a president will pursue will actually affect them?
If young people really cared about public policy, they would be frantic about the financial state of the country. Debts are piling up higher than the Washington Monument and they are being set up to pay them off. Yet not a single college student — that we know of — has let out a whimper.
But can the older folks count on the continuing civic lassitude of the young? We don’t know. But we do know that the current fiscally absurd Social Security scheme might not survive the kids’ discovery of democracy’s power. The fact is, the kids in America are being had, even as the poor citizens of the Arab states, whom we have been watching on television in recent months, have for so many years, decades even, been had.
One thing is clear: in order to “fix” Social Security, we will have to recruit the young and assign to them the following tasks: pay more and retire later. But what’s in that fix for them?
Not a lot. At least, not a lot compared to the alternative, a privatized Social Security system.
Both skeptics and Progressives (aka liberals) will vehemently oppose privatization of Social Security, the skeptics because they fear it won’t work, the Progressives because they fear it will.
But of course it will work. It is working, in Chile. Workers there have been getting rich on their social security accounts since 1981.
Why don’t we privatize our Social Security system? Because if today’s young people were released from the bondage of Social Security, who would pay into the system the funds necessary to provide the benefits promised to today’s retirees? As everyone is finally discovering, Social Security is not a lock box. The money flows out in benefits as fast as — actually, starting last year, faster than — it is paid in in taxes. Legislators call that a pay-as-you-go scheme.
Prosecutors call it a Ponzi scheme. The young are like Bernie Madoff’s clients. Or like pigeons, a term given to investors duped into supporting a theatrical enterprise that the insiders have come to realize will flop financially. Like, say, Springtime for Obama in Balanced Budget Land.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (127) | Leave a comment
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VAcogito| 6.13.11 @ 6:53AM
Have you not talked to young people? They have all been brainwashed by their public school and would turn this country over to the nearest socialist-leaning politician. It is not until they are in their mid-twenties and have started to really earn a paycheck that the results of a government paying for all those things that they were taught were "rights" starts to penetrate their mind. I thank God that young people do not vote and am holding out for the day when my generation retires from teaching in the hope that maybe some rationality will enter the curricula.
tsd| 6.13.11 @ 7:28AM
Seems most do not have jobs, so do not pay in, just live off mom and dad. The ones that do feel the need to work to make an honest buck will soon find they get to keep only about .40 of that buck....not the American Dream they were led to believe. Freedom to earn money for the entitlement folks who get more of your hard earned money than you get. This is the change you can believe in!
Pecos Pete| 6.13.11 @ 7:46AM
On top of the nation's debt, including Social Security and other entitlements, our future leaders also have to pay off the college debts. Instead of buying homes they will spend their early work years paying, and paying and paying.
Petronius| 6.13.11 @ 8:08AM
Who gives a rats rear about Soc. Security when that great un-American invention, the trust fund allows an overweening statist oriented cohort of "reformers" to saddle the taxpayers with more entitlements? The brainiac elites forced my parents into S.S. This lot will redress the balance with death panels. Got that boomers. Gens. X and Y cannot afford us. Die early and often.
martin j smith| 6.13.11 @ 8:11AM
Some one has to take the bull by the horns and talk directly to the voters. They have to challenge BOTH the SOCIALISTS and RINOS as to THEIR PLANS for social security and other 'entitlements" . S/he must challenge them on the EXISTENCE OF THE DEFICIT and ask for THEIR SOLUTIONS. And, they must when it is right to call out those who are MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. I.E. They are LIARS!!!!!!!!
That is correct, those who fail to take our economic situation seriously MUST BE CALLED OUT.
idalily| 6.14.11 @ 2:36PM
What makes you think American voters want the truth? That's why the politicians don't speak it. With a few exceptions, like Ryan, who is THE driving force behind this topic right now, politicians are not talking about SS and Med. Why? Voters don't want to hear that it doesn't work. Not when most voters are retired or old enough to see retirement down the road. And as the article states, the young don't care. Too busy partying.
FTM| 6.13.11 @ 9:01AM
Being a fifty year old kid...
To add to what VAcogito said, "Give me a child for a year and I'll own him for the rest of his life," or words to that effect, from the rising NAZI party in 1930's Germany. From the other side of the coin, Winston Chruchill said, "If you are twenty and not a liberal you have no heart. If you are forty and not a conservitave you have no brain."
Now, to address the twenty percent of the under twenty crowd that the first paragraph doesn't cover, the ones that aren't too stupid to talk to in the first place, these "kids" are smart enough to recognize hypocracy in both parties when they see it. These kids are smart enough to decide for themselves and all by themselves, that the ship is sinking and there is nothing to be done about it.
TSD made a comment regarding the government getting sixty cents out of every dollar of income. Sorry TSD, the number is actually closer to eighty-five cents on the dollar if not more. Along with federal taxes, consider state and local income and other taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes, check out your cell phone bill for a 'nother whole flock of taxes, not to mention your water and electricity bills and then there's the ever popular sales tax, the list goes on and on, et cetra et cetra ad nauseum ad infinitum. After the listing of all taxes is complete reflect for just a moment that the sum total paid isn't even close to enough, we're still running deficits at the federal and most state levels.
Now, the good thing is that the money owed to "Socalist Security" is owed to ourselves in that the "Socialist Security" Trust Fund is stuffed with, for the most part worthless government securities, T-Bills for example. Corporations, banks etc. along with private citizenry own a portion of the national debt so what we actually owe to hostile forigners isn't as much as you would expect.
You might be thinking, "OK kid, what's the answer." The kid says that we're screwed. Just an off the cuff guess, most "adults" that I know actually believe that companies, large and small, privately owned and publically traded can actually pay taxes. I know a lady with a PhD in Education, naturally a registered Democrat that gets really, really shrill when you suggest that the Ford Motor Car Company doesn't pay taxes. Tell the lady that Ford's tax burden, a cost of doing business is rolled into the price of their product and she starts to get hysterical. Fords income, their cash flow comes from customers and if Ford earns even as much as one dollar in a years time then the customer paid all of Ford's cost of doing business, materials, utilities, labor and taxes. Translate the "businesses don't pay taxes" meme into every transaction that you conduct in a day's time, what I call the cumulative tax burden on any given commodity and some government entity or another is getting ninety-five percent or better of "your" income.
Yes, I realize that I'm preaching to the choir for the most part. The major part of the problem is that we let too many people vote in this country. We let people that live off of the public tit vote for example. Welfare recipients as well as public service sector folks. You can't win an election without the cooperation of at least one of these two constituencies.
If "Military Intelligence" is an oxymoron then what is "Public Service?"
Couple all of the above with the sad damned fact that as of yet I haven't herd so much as even a peep from any politician about getting the US out of NATO and the UN and Asia and the like. Let the damned EU pay for their own continental defense as well as their universal health coverage and they'll be in the same shape as the Greeks in five years.
From my chair, this is easy. Not to mention pitiful and completely unstoppable. Politicians, Independent, Democrat or Republican use your tax dollar to pander to their constituencies. Say what you want about Lyndon Johnson, the man was a genius. Use your tax dollar to literally grow a government dependant constituency. The Republicans do the same thing promising to protect you from the thieving Democrats and those bad 'ol folks overseas, whoever it is that is taking the place of the old Soviet Union this week. By the bye, this kid is a cold war era boomer sailor. The independents play, "Me Too!" one way or the other.
The grand experiment in self government has failed. The public, read Prolotariat, has determined that they can vote themselves lavish gifts from the public treasury about three generations ago. If "We the People" stopped and did a unified about face today and made a cold war, moon shot effort to pay off the national debt it would take more than three generation to get the job done.
In closing, not to be a complete wet blanket but somebody make a logical, thoughtful counterarguement. The way I see it, from the historical perspective using ancient Athens as the model we're headed for a tyranny. My guess a military dictatorship, sooner raqther than later.
Jordan| 6.13.11 @ 9:24AM
Unfortunately a democracy is simply not a good way to govern. You're right about to many people having a vote, and therefore too many people having a say in government. A dictatorship that protects human rights is the way to go, unfortunately people assume universal voting rights are human rights. This obsession with defining what is a "right", whether it is retirement, health care, or even recently the UN basically said that communication (internet) was a "right," has been the weakness of the democratic system of governance. This progressive culture allows unresponsible men and women to vote for abortion "rights", it allows those without a job to simply vote to get a "right" to unemployment benefits or government subsidized food or shelter. Then there is the "right" to retirement paid for by the younger generation or the "right" to secondary eduction. And the list goes on and more things will be added and eventually, because of our "rights" we will be a nation that has none, because in less than a decade 89% of our budget will consist of mandatory spending and we will ironically be held in check by our very "rights" that everyone, even those who call themselves conservatives, have for so long championed.
Old Soldier| 6.13.11 @ 11:07AM
Jordan - Glad I'm not the only one who can distinguish the difference between Freedom and Democracy - and recognize that they can often be opposites.
Their are plenty of examples of failed Democracies - including Athens which is taught up as a success in history classes.
Nunya| 6.13.11 @ 5:00PM
We were never meant to be a democracy--we were a Republic. Not the same, by a long shot.
Unfortunately, our Constitution and the intents of our founding fathers has been bastardized so badly that if you ask someone off the street what kind of country this is, you will likely get "A democracy". You're absolutely correct about what people define as "rights", and the sad part is that most Americans have a sense of decency and fairness, so that when they are being "played" by leftists about what is right, they want to be decent about it, which just continues to erode the original intent of the founders.
I was always brought up to understand that life isn't fair; unfortunately, not enough people can live with that which it seems to me is why we have Democraps.
Ken (Old Texican)| 6.13.11 @ 9:28AM
FTM,
well spoken, sir.
As I have often commented here, in one fashion or another, as a nation we are already skidding on the black ice, totally out of control. The only question is the exact composition of the wall we are going to hit.
The "kids" in the "back seat" are reacting however they have been taught.
Some are screaming, (the wrong suggestions), often enough. Some have gone passive out of hopelessness. Many are in denial or pure ignorance.
We have delegated raising too many of our kids to the government schools, and we will reap what we have sown.
FTM, I have written a full length "future history", (happening right now), of some of the impacts we might very well experience. ("America Alone Said NO!)
I hope you will check it out at my blogsite:
www.txbooks.blogspot.com
Sheila| 6.13.11 @ 10:08AM
Yes! Yes! An honest, rational, genuinely conservative (rather than right-liberal) comment at TAS! Of course, every solid, logical point that you've made, FTM, will be refuted by emotional demands for "MY social security money" and emotional canards such as "we were all created equal" and finally shaming arguments such as "You're a defeatist." Decline and fall.
FTM| 6.13.11 @ 2:28PM
I wanted to add an "OR" statement. That would be a logical "OR", as in "IF" some series of conditions become true "THEN" some predetermined outcome occurs. Boolian math.
First, thank you all for your kind comments.
The "OR" statement being that I think that what we think of when people talk about an "economy" is about to become obsolete. The "OR" being what the folks that call themselves "Technological Singulitarinans" are talking about.
Now, I've read the Bible through from cover to cover seven times. I've read Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." I've read everything that Plato and Aristotle wrote. I've read what Tacitus and Livy and Plutarch and Herodotus and lots of other guys like this wrote.
Not to blow my own horn in regards to my reading list but the human race has practiced monarchy, oligarchy, timarchy, democracy, hybrid forms of all of the above and the outcome has been pretty much the same every time. Did you know that the definition of a "Republic" is for the most part a government that is either not one of the above listed or some combination of some set of the above listed. For example, in our federal government the executive is modeled after a monarchy. The Legislative being an aristocracy in the upper house, the Senate, a parlement in the lower house and finally a timarchy in the judicial branch.
Now, the Bible says that out of all this chaos will come a thousand year long period of peace, a little more turbulance then no further mention of the human race or it's status past that point.
I see a new "Dark Age" coming similar to what happened at the final collapse of the Roman Empire "OR" basically a shortcut to a new "Age of Enlightenment."
We, the human race, are making technological advances at ever increasing or accelerating rates. We make discoveries and find practical applications for these discoveries at a rate not before seen in the history of the world. Singulitarians will tell you that the human brain will be reverse engineered by 2020. Singulitarians will tell you that human beings will become functionally immortal by 2040.
When you get time you really ought to google these Singulitarian folks. They have some really good things to say about where we're headed as a species.
I think that governments, the economy, personal, national and global economies that is, are about to become obsolete.
Suppose that we had some power generation technology that produced heat energy that could be used to produce electricity for little or no cost. There is a whole lot that we don't know about the quantum universe. Suppose that we figured out how to rearrange quantum particles into electrons by some as of yet unidentified process. Basically plug your house into the quantum universe. What good would oil and coal and all the existing power generation infrastructure be then? What would there be to fight over?
Human bioengineering. The human genome project has been completed, 2002. Some of the data that has been revealed and the implications are fantastic. We're starting to get a grip on the human aging process, causes and effects and perhaps a therapy or two to boot.
Anyway, you can read what these Singulitarian folks are predicting and form your own conclusions. I think that most everything that we take for granted is for the most part perched on the edge of becoming antique. Outmoded.
Wether or not you ascribe to the idea of a physical "Big Bang" or "Let there be light" an age is about to befall the human race, in my most humbe estimation where, " Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." This is what I think is about to come to pass. We just have to hold on a little longer.
Peace to you all.
FTM| 6.13.11 @ 2:31PM
OK, sermon off.
Ian| 6.16.11 @ 2:58PM
I (mostly) agree with pretty well everything you said, FTM. However I don't think the American military has the necessary back-bone to take over. Think modern-day Greece.
The greater likelihood is simply national poverty, heralded in by the fall of the dollar from its status as the prefered international reserve currency (already happening, thanks to Helicopter Ben and his various QEs) and the consequent hyper-inflation. The untold trillions in un-funded federal liabilities will simply evaporate with the value of the dollar and the savings of everyone foolish enough to still believe in the dollar.
I was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe - thank you America for your hand in that) so I am well-acquainted with hyper-inflation. In '78 the exchange rate (with heavy international embargoes) was 2.3 US dollars to 1 Rhodesian dollar. Now it is somewhere in the range of some TRILLION Zim dollars to one US$, for the very few who even bother to count anymore.
I don't think the US will reach the unfathomable depths of Zimbabwe under their brave leader comrade Sir Robert Mugabe, but fall she will. More along the lines of Argentina (which was once called the 'Switzerland of the South', and had the fourth-highest per capita income in the world).
The danger of blowing the trumpets of the apocalypse is that when only catastrophe arrives, people no longer take you seriously.
Dan Hirsch| 6.13.11 @ 9:13AM
As someone who has unwillingly paid into social security since the late 1960's it is incredibly galling to hear the "benefits" I have been told for 50 years is an "entitlement." An entitlement as in money that the federal government decides is due to the poor, the poor sick, the offspring of the poor.
We were told this was a trust fund - that we were contributing to our own retirement. That this was "Savings."
The attitude that those expecting some modicum of cash from this system after involuntarily contributing to it for decades is somehow unreasonable or selfish is no less than slander.
We know there will not be much available from that "system" (scheme!) but do not demean the unwilling participants whose earnings have been pilfered, ever so slightly, yet ever so persistently for decades who now want to know if we have, in fact, been robbed. This robbery only being addressed AFTER we are able to do anything about it. How many old white guys get hired at fortune 500 companies a year at normal salary levels. Looks a lot like none to me!
It's the political class, Congressmen and executive branch bureaucrats that is to blame and it is a shame they can't be identified and tried for this theft.
PS. Are you a big supporter of Obamacare? This is its future. Count on it! There is no other...
Ken (Old Texican)| 6.13.11 @ 9:36AM
Dan,
Good points.
We here have all read the comparative yields of SS vs. private investments over time.
We've done our part. We have taken care of our own seniors as well as the stupid system has allowed, (plus a lot more out of pocket), as we should have.
We are going to be the ones set adrift on an ice floe.
PCC| 6.13.11 @ 10:18AM
The problem, Dan, is the amount all you geezers contributed over those fifty years versus the whopping sums you and your cohorts are now receiving. Most S.S. recipients nowadays burn up all their contributions, plus interest, in a few years, and all the rest is wrung from the sweat of a younger someone's brow.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 11:26AM
Well put PCC. Well put...
skip| 6.13.11 @ 2:27PM
I agree with you Dan up to the point any individual receives one penny more than the individual put into the system. None have any moral claim to that penny.
Most individuals may have been unwilling participants, but how many adequately claimed the system unacceptable among peers over time? Or demanded change at any point in their lives? Bothered to put enough effort into correcting the situation to even write one letter to one congressional representative one time? Knowing the flaws and unsustainability of the system made prudent plans to be personally accountable for their own retirement? Social Security was foolish in 1965 and to this day has not been dealt with. An immoral unintelligent dishonest electorate deserves no better.
What is sown is what is reaped.
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 3:48PM
Am I the only one amused that you have states/individuals pointing at ObamaCare as unconstitutional because it forces Americans to purchase a product, and yet none of them point to SS as the same thing? It is a product we are all FORCED to pay, along with MediCare, and yet somehow those two programs are perfectly okay?
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 3:49PM
pay = buy
rascal| 6.13.11 @ 4:12PM
True Blue, no. Not at all. True conservatives equally disparage government run (mandated) health care and any organized (forced) retirement fund planning. Doesn't matter if we call it Social Security or anything else, conservatives believe that we all have to behave as adults.
You save today what you think you need stowed up for tomorrow. I'll follow my own personal plan towward retirement. Our neighbor will pursue his. Someone else doesn't plan and save and bears possible rough consequences for this. Okay? That is what conservatives believe.
Individual responsibility.
skip| 6.13.11 @ 5:16PM
I am amused you allege an inconsistency in a reply to my comment stating in essence social security is immoral, unintelligent, and dishonest, implying this is somehow inconsistent with the immorality, unintelligence, dishonesty, and unconstitutionality of ditheringidiotliarinchiefcare.
To clarify, social security was immoral, unintelligent, dishonest, and unconstitutional in 1935;
was self-evidently immoral, unintelligent, dishonest, and unconstitutional 30 years later in 1965, when the immorality, unintelligence, dishonesty, and unconstitutionality was exacerbated exponentially by expansion through the social security act to include medicare and medicaid;
and was certainly self-evidently immoral, unintelligent, dishonest, and unconstitutional 45 years after that in 2010, when the immorality, unintelligence, dishonesty, and unconstitutionality was expanded to a virtually incomprehensible degree by enacting the patient protection and affordable health care act.
75 consecutive years of obviously immoral, unintelligent, dishonest, and unconstitutional congressional acts involving retirement and health insurance that violate every individual's liberty through oppression of their social, political, and economic rights, by decreasing their financial security, decreasing the medical goods and services available to them, while increasing the costs of what limited medical goods and services remain available to them.
What is sown is reaped. God have mercy on the children especially the grandchildren and great grandchildren, not to mention the electorate of the last 75 years souls on judgement day.
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 5:41PM
I wasn't saying anything against your statement, just adding my opinion to it is all. Sorry if it came off that way to you.
skip| 6.13.11 @ 7:40PM
No problem. There was a misunderstanding, and through a little bit of clarification, through a little bit of additional communication, it's now all well and good. Now if we could just apply this lesson to the misunderstandings of the financial security and medical goods and services fiasco this nation is about to implode from...
TrueBlue| 6.14.11 @ 4:20PM
That would require people to be able to a) be willing to talk to each other, b) be willing to clarify their positions fully and intelligently, c) be willing to admit they were wrong and take responsibility for their actions.
skip| 6.14.11 @ 8:30PM
We are so screwed.
Requisite| 6.13.11 @ 4:02PM
So why do conservatives revere the names of people like Henry Hyde, Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich (15 years ago), Dick Armey, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Pete Domenici, Don Nickles. Fossils on the Hill like Frank Wolf, Orrin Hatch, Dan Coats, Richard Lugar, Lamar Alexander, Jim Inhofe, Thad Cochran, Mitch McConnell....
Heck, John McCain was the GOP nominee to "win?!?" just 36 months ago.
Combined, those men probably have 475 years in Congressional offices.
What? They bear no burden? No responsibility for Social Security's abject failure? All of them were active in politics at this level in some capacity 30 years ago.
And they didn't see the Social Security conflagration coming? (of course they did)
What vocal conservative is literally skewering them (the above named eighteen pols) BY NAME today -- so as to place the fear of DISGRACE & DERRISION into the Hill occupants currently in D.C.?
Skip, you are a bit too harsh on what you call the immoral, unintelligent, dishonest electorate. You assume none have ever written, called, or spoken to candidates runnning or those in office. You obviously don't attend any of the fundraiser breakfasts or outdoor BBQs that are in full swing every other weekend now across the land (as has been the case the last 5-6 decades).
Attendees try to pigeonhole the candidates/office holders on these issues ALL THE TIME.
Having done all of that for years (and having worked for a US Senator and briefly for a two Congressmen), I can assure you, they don't listen.
Once more: They really don't listen.
They knew that all these "entitlements" were folly three decades ago AND HAVE DONE NOTHING.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 4:49PM
By name... no. But in his general election debate, Tom Coburn (in his bid fo Senate, not his older races for House) said it was not in the Constitution for the government to take care of anyone or force them to take care of themselves.
But... barring that... you're right. Republicans have bought into the whole "3rd rail" ideology too... because those with money have power and the one's with money are all in line to get SS and Medicare/cade.
But it is the electorate who keeps putting them back... the electorate is to blame for the actions of the elected. Granted... they're breaking the law (violating the Constitution) but since the electorate doesn't hold them accountable (our place in the governing process) they get away with is and pay us (the electorate) off with kickbacks in the form of SS checks... well... not me, I'm just footing the bill.
skip| 6.13.11 @ 5:37PM
Too harsh? Obviously not enough has been done. After 75 years of continuous immoral, unintelligent, dishonest, and unconstitutional legislation harming everyone's financial security and ability to access medical goods and services, polls today still show the majority of the electorate is unwilling to change the system.
And, you obviously don't understand one of those politicans on your esteemed list was a frequent guest to outdoor barbeques hosted in my back yard where he was by God a captive audience to my meek, humble, unopinionated comments.
You obviously made a nonrequisitely obviously foolish statement to state I obviously haven't attended any outdoor functions, requisitely, and even that I nonrequisitely assumed none have ever written or spoken to these or any other politicians, requisitely. Requisitely not enough has been done.
Joel Rice| 6.15.11 @ 2:12PM
how about Mark Haines of CNBC who died at age 65 so he never collected a penny of what he put in -and all the others in the same boat.
Bill Sundling| 6.13.11 @ 9:31AM
The federal government has unfunded liabilities five times the amount of the official national debt. I have no doubt that someday the US government will simply stop making social security payments. Period.
Old Soldier| 6.13.11 @ 11:10AM
Someday (probably soon) the U.S. government is simply going to stop.
Civil and world war will probably follow. Maybe a new republic will emerge - maybe a new dark age...
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 11:25AM
Given that the power brokers of the Baby Boomers who survive and the survivors of my generation (the children of Baby Boomers) will be the ones to determine such a future... my money is on the Dark Ages.
squalis| 6.13.11 @ 10:05AM
FTM, it is hard to say if the self government experiment failed. In any scientific experiment, for results to be reliable, verifiable, and repetitive, a specific set of rules are created AND strictly adhered to. It is under these circumstances that results are interpreted. Those rules for us had been created in the Constitution. Sadly, as has been pointed out by many people more knowledgeable about those rules than I, for at least 100 years, those rules have been increasingly ignored. It may be just semantics, and the results are the same, but politicians, judges and people failed the experiment, not the other way around.
insanity | 6.13.11 @ 10:47AM
nice news
Melvin| 6.13.11 @ 10:50AM
One female twenty-something was interviewed during the 2008 election. The subject was health care. The young lady said that, "Health Care should be Free." The news ferret kindly reminded her that nothing is ever really, "Free" someone along the way does pay for it.
The young lady developed an annoyed look upon her face, for being put in such a difficult position of acutally having to think of a rational response.
"I don't care how it happens, I just want it to be free." The this mentality really surprise anyone these days?
Old Soldier| 6.13.11 @ 11:13AM
The young lady has only been dealing with two types of people - professors who are communists and agree - and young men who will vocally agree with her to up their chances of bedding her.
CopyKatnj| 6.13.11 @ 11:10AM
A "Ponzi Scheme" correctly labels Social Security. I have been reading for the past two years of government hearings looking into confiscating IRA's and 401k's as a means to prop up SS. The pro-confiscators then will back up the confiscation with federal securities and give recipients a payout as an annuity determined by the government.
As for the Chile privatization, I have been all for it after I had learned about it during the Bush 1 years. In fact, I have been executing a small part of privatization this year. As of January 2011 , Social Security deductions were reduced 2%. I have taken that 2% and put it into my 401k deductions. The result is my federal income tax remained the same and my 401k has grown. So far this is working well and is very close to the Bush 1 proposal.
St. Thor| 6.13.11 @ 11:12AM
Always remember the reason we aren't now on the path to privatization was the timidity of the Bush Administration and the arrogance and hubris of Lindsay Graham. We don't need more of their like in he White House or Senate.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 11:23AM
As one of the twenty-somethings (albeit, just months from being a thirty-something) I have a great respect for my elders. The Greatest Generation is just that. The sacrifices they made to save the world on D-Day and every other day of the war, far too often, are overlooked and "moviefied" by my generation. I worked a summer as a janitor in a V.A. hospital and loved every bit of it because i was serving those who secured my chance at a future. I enjoyed talking to them and hearing their stories etc. I truely respect them.
HOWEVER... as I get older, and earn and work and pay taxes, I find myself increasingly angry at them and their children (my parents, the Baby Boomers). I am told by the left that if we touch Medicare that the elderly will have to resort to eating dogfood in order to pay for their meds. Well, given that the over 55 crowd have more money than I will ever dream of having (thanks to the debt they put on my back) they can eat their damned dog food. I didn't vote for SS (and no right minded person who took five mintues to read the Constitution could and this is why I can hold those who came before me responsible despite what they say they were "told" by the politicaians about it being "savings"), Medicar/Medicade but I am forced, at gun point, to participate in this theft of my wallet. About 10 years ago when I was mulling over SS, I conluded, at the time, that the right thing to do was to make my sacrifice, the sacrifice of my generation, and continue to pay off the SS debt but do so knowing I would not recieve it. This would be a policy decision... my SS tax wouldn't decrease, but I would be told, by the government, that I would not get any of it back. Back then, I would have accepted that sort of deal. Now... 10 years after some kid right out of HS figured out I was getting screwed (unConstitutionally no less) and nothing has been done but to screw me harder... Screw you. It was in the Baby Boomers lap to fix the system, to do good by their kids, and to stop the madness. Instead the most greedy and horrible generation of people simply said, "Tough... I'm getting rich on your back and you're going to like it."
And the sad thing? My generation has simply said, by default by not saying anything at all, "Please sir, may I have another!?"
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 11:47AM
No "Boomer" ever voted for SS or Medicare either, Yelo. The oldest of them was not even an ovule or a sperm in 1935 and was only 19 in 1965 when the voting age was still 21. Nope, it was the Greedy Geezers who drained the SS and Medicare "Trust Funds."
(Please see my comments on Chris Orlet's column the other day to learn why the GGers do not deserve our adulation.)
I am glad to see that you young people are waking up. Spread the word. We Boomers didn't have the oomph to overcome the GGers, but the two-headed monster of SS and Medicare can be vanquished on your watch.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 12:07PM
Handy-
No... they didn't vote for it... but they have been the generation of power for the last 20-30 years. And during that time nothign was done except to keep the status quo (or make it worse). The blame of the genesis of the problem is on the elderly... not fixing it is squarely on the Boomers. And it won't be "vanquished" on my watch... it will simply go bust and there will be chaos because of it. To "vanquish" it would be to imply a championing of the problem with a suffecient and victorious outcome. That's not going to happen especially with the Boomer-educated Gen X and Y-ers. Like it was said elsewhere here, we're in the back of the car doing all the things we were taught to do and nothing we should be doing.
JP| 6.13.11 @ 12:09PM
But the Boomers did expand benefits, began borrowing against SS receipts in order to cover general budget shortfalls, and refused to recognize the financial facts when there was still time to reform it (the 1990s).
The Boomers number about 76 million people. Yet, as an age group they only averaged about 1.5 live births per female (circa 1969-1987 -thier most fertile years). As a result, we now have a inverted demographic. Boomers made abortion and artificial contracpetion common place. The result of all of this is far few workers with the income neccesary to finance the current SS system. All-in-all, SS represents about $40 trillion of unfunded liabilities through 2050. And even now. the Boomers are not willing to reform this ponzi scheme.
Oldefarte| 6.13.11 @ 11:43AM
Weeding one's way [here] through what's commonly referred to BULLEXCREMENT [and not related to the subject matter/SS as well] is frustrating, but the simple fact of the matter is that SS is easily fixable. First, it was originally established as a forced savings/supplemental retirement plan for the masses, since most of the stupids out there wouldn't know how to save a nickel if they tried to do so [amazingly the current rate of savings has thankfully increased from 0% to now 5%, due mostly to the terror most now feel over the domestic terrorists' control and devastation of our economy]. The Roosevelt administration set up SS to provide a PARTIAL retirement cushion [and to provide something to morons in light of their excessive overspending activities]. With that said, the fixes are easy: [1] taxpayers need to demand/force their government to ASAP completely repay the $trillions that have been previously/historically STOLEN from the SS trust fund [to pay for such unneeded government expendatures as welfare in the forms of Medicaid, foreign aid, farm aid, etc]; [2] uncap all salary/income to begin requiring every dime of same taxable for SS purposes [if someone makes $300000/year, all of it would be taxable on a gradual declining basis of course]; and [3] if thereafter necessary, raise retirement age requirements, means test COLAS etc. Problem solved, and SS preserved for future generations!!!!!!!!!!
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 11:28AM
Social Security was immoral from the start. The only moral course is to end it as soon as possible.
All persons born after a date certain (12/31/2011?) should be exempt from any "contributions" and ineligible for any benefits. All others should be given the option to stay in, continue to "contribute" and be eligible for benefits, or to opt-out, meaning no more "contributions" and no benefits, either.
Obviously, those already on the teat or close to it would stay suckled. But, most sensible people in their 40s and 50s would opt out. No one under 40 would stay in. Within about 20 years, SS would be nothing but a very bad memory and a sad lesson learned.
Same with Medicare.
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 4:02PM
If you're collecting now, then you continue to collect. If you're going to collect in the next 10 yrs, then you get to collect what you paid into it (adjusting for inflation), and if you're beyond that 10 yr window you stop paying in, and you will not collect. This goes for both SS and Medicare. Yes it will suck for people who were depending on it so they could retire, but it'll stop the bs system we've been forced to pay into.
Frankly, I want the money I was forced to pay into the system back, but I'm willing to write it off as a loss if it'll end the cursed thing. People will go on and on about various excuses for why we can't end it now, but if we don't end it NOW, then it won't end until the government decides to stop paying it (let's face it, the government doesn't have a clue how to stop spending money). One side or the other will continue to use it as a political tool to get elected, and things will keep going downhill.
For those negatively affected by that kind of a change, I'm sorry, but SUCK IT UP. If my family can manage to pull itself up from a series minimum wage jobs to comfortably retire without needing SS/Medicare, then everyone else can do so to. Stop forcing other people to pay because you couldn't (and still can't) take responsibility for your own life.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 4:52PM
With what money will you pay out those who will still recieve, even those who will get only what they put in (the 10 yrs out people) unless I, the younger ones far from 10 years out, are forced to keep paying until everyone on the dole finally dies?
You can't do it because that plan assumes there is money in the system that we can "ride out" until it's phased out... but there's not one red cent there and THAT is why, no matter how you slice it, the younger you are the more screwed you are because you're the only one left to pay the bills when dear old mom and dad pass on.
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 5:44PM
There's a metric ton of uselesss government programs that can be cut to pay for it. The EPA for one.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 6:05PM
When SS and other social spending makes up, what is it? 60% of the budget, it's gonna take a whole heap of EPAs to pay it off.
I agree with you, though, that we should certainly start cutting crap out so that we can at least do what little we can to blunt the impact of the debt when it comes due.
I mean, don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade on getting rid of the damnable program. Just that in the end, it really looks like it's gonna be on my generations back (or, if I'm lucky... in a very selfish way) the next generations back. But probably on mine. Which, if that means ending it for good... then so be it. But if it lands on my back because everyoen else just kicked the can down the road rather than deciding to just buckle down and deal with it then that's some serisouly bad business that my elder's did to me. And yes... that would really piss me off. And don't get all high and mighty because it would to you seniors too if it happened that way. I mean, just take a look at how they act when we even dare TALK about fixing SS.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 12:12PM
Re: Step One-
"repay the $trillions that have been..."
Repay with what? The govt. is BROKE. And partly BECAUSE it's paying people SS each month.
Your generation (assuming you truley are an "oldefarte" has more money than any other... why the hell don't YOU pay for it by not receiving any more checks? Oh, that's right... because it's easier to draw your checks each month while I bust my ass and pay taxes out the yazoo to foot the bill long enough for you to kick the bucket then who cares what happens after that. 'bouts sum it up? Becuse that's how it looks from my end.
As for you feeble defense of SS being a "supplimental savings" program for peole too stupid to do it themselves...
Where in the Constitution are you granted the power to take from me to "suppliment" your savings? Find that section and then we'll talk.
George S| 6.13.11 @ 1:30PM
Isn't it all about "promises"? We were promised that the tax would be salary capped. We were promised a fixed retirement age. We were promised no means testing. We were promised COLA. If you want the Congress to break all promises save one, then that promise, too, is negotiable... isn't it?
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 1:46PM
If you look at it from the point of the retiree, then the argument is "But I was promised!"
If you look at it from the point of those who foot the bill, the argument is, "No, you were lied to and you should have known better. AND... even if it wasn't a lie... YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO SUPPORT IT."
Either way... the retiree is either stupid or malicious. The only way to fix that problem is to admit which one and begin to correct it.
Besides... all promises from government are empty. Why do you think my entire generation is apathetic about everything? Because we, despite being labeled as lazy and stupid, actually get one thing right... the game is fixed and we're the ones who are gonna get hosed.
CopyKatnj| 6.13.11 @ 11:58AM
Social Security is now more like a scene from "Goodfellas", substitute the federal government for Paulie and us taxpayers and the Bamboo Club owner and it's about correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtjyqgZAUk
JP| 6.13.11 @ 12:02PM
Here is why SS privatization won't work:
1)Congress will write the law. One can just imagine the feeding frenzy of corporate lobbyists as they smell big bucks coming thier way.
2)When has Congress every allowed a pile of cash to sit dormant? They will find someway to tap into people's SS accounts and "borrow" against the cash.
Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system. Current retirees are subsidized by the working class. It's called a transfer of wealth, or wealth re-distribution.
SS could be solvent if every generation generate birthrates of around 3 to 4 children . We haven't had those kinds of numbers since 1964. Additionally, the federal government would have to ensure that GDP remains around 2.5-3.0% every year, and that every generation educates thier children well enough for the children to get good paying jobs.
That isn't every going to happen.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 12:13PM
You could have stopped at
"1) Congress"
Ken (Old Texican)| 6.13.11 @ 12:21PM
I MUST note that once again the communists have set us at each other's throats depending upon our age...this time.
HEY, YOU STUPID WHIPPERSNAPPERS...
We old farts are not your enemy. The communists in our government are your enemy!
Class envy is the tool of the communists, idiots!
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 12:47PM
You are right... this is a fight that will divide us. The answer is to do what is RIGHT and for those who are benifiting at the exploitation of others need to realize what they are doing and admit it. The Commies set up this system to do just what it has done... buy the votes of a whole class of people (the elderly) and they have done such a superb job that even those who on every other issue are right (conservative) have been bought on a single issue.
Jefferson once said (this is my paraphrasing) that the moment the government realizes it can buy votes, the system is done for. We have a chance for those who took to give back that which is not theirs to take and to get everyone on the same side again. I pray this happens.
Slacker| 6.13.11 @ 12:59PM
"We old farts are not your enemy."
Well, then stop screwing us
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 1:29PM
The Communists, indeed!!! Beginning with FDR and on through LBJ. Even Reagan expanded benefits, although he did raise "contributions" on us working folks back in the 80s to 15+% SS plus 3% Medicare (uncapped). These folks, and most in Congress were not Boomers. By contrast, the GGers only "contributed" on average about 3% SS and 1.5% Medicare while they were employed.
The system was busticated long before the first Boomer became eligible for benefits in 2001.
Stay tuned folks. More shortly.
Oldefarte| 6.13.11 @ 3:24PM
BS! Try explaining [or possibly UNDERSTANDING] the differences between [1]SS/Medicare and [2] Medicaid/Food Stamps/Rental Housing Allowances, both of which are government expenses as to each's degree of being PAID FOR BY ITS RECIPIENTS??????????
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 4:56PM
They ARE the same thing. I am paying taxes that will pay your SS check and I will get nothing in return. I am paying taxes that subsidize Food Stamps et al. and I will get nothing in return. Because SS recipients will get MORE than 100% of what they paid in... it is no different than Food Stamps. It just might take a few years to reach that point.
Pat| 6.13.11 @ 1:09PM
Wow, osteoarthritis and a mild case of hemorrhoids apparently can influence your mental processes – this author’s work is a case in point. Before the Social Security Administration was a glimmer in FDR’s eye, social security was “privatized”, we didn’t call it social security though, families took care of their old folks, aging parents tried to put away a modest nest egg while raising their children. That didn’t work for everyone to the government’s complete satisfaction - so Washington D.C. Studios came out with a 1935 blockbuster called the Social Security Act - and in it, our hero, Uncle Sam creates a modest nest egg for you, the deserving citizen - all you were required to do was not die too young.
And the salient feature of every well-conceived Ponzi scheme is that the early contributors get the most return on their investments – just as it happened here in the good ole US of A. So, in retrospect, those fortunate Americans who successfully swindled the rest of us are either dead or currently hanging out in retirement homes. For today’s typical 8 year old American, the outlook is very grim, the legal eligibility age for retirement will quite likely rise to 80, social security taxes will steadily increase over this child’s lifetime and, unlike Bernie Madoff, our fund manager Uncle Sam will never be prosecuted for this massive fraud perpetrated on generations of investors.
For today’s young Americans, apathy is the only sane choice, the massive voting bloc of Boomers is grimly determined to get their money’s worth, Gen X optimistically demands the same and, for today’s college student, the odds that our nation’s aging gray hairs will voluntarily discontinue this multi-generational swindle are about the same as winning the MegaBucks lottery. And just as in Jonathan Swift’s day, the only available refuge from despair is satire – so expect to see future remakes of the movie “Soylent Green” and with a fictional Martha Stewart type modifying those former recipes for braising Irish babies to a 2050 version of low calorie, geriatric quiche.
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 1:33PM
Beautiful, just beautiful. Thanks for taking the time to write your outstanding post.
Oldefarte| 6.13.11 @ 3:55PM
Oh, cry me a GD river of crocadile tears. Thank the Almighty that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jack Welsh, Sandy Weill etc weren't the lazy, good-for-nothing lazy bums that you have just adequately described. Instead of blowing tokes etc up their ignorant noses, why not encourage today's youth to instead stick it inside a book or two, and to possibly educate themselves enough to possibly become the next Gates-type. But wait, I forgot, we now have El Chosen One that all of you morons out there bow down and worship, telling you all to worship government service instead of the old private industry evil-doers, right? All of you depressed young fools continue your hypnotic state of existence which will result in [just as you describe] a lifetime of lazily meandering through life with no purpose, no ambition, no goals, and NO INCOME, NO RETIREMENT, ETC!!!!!!!!!
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 4:46PM
It's hard to know where you are coming from, OldeF. Are you a socialist in principle, or just on the receiving end of the soup line?
If you care to respond, please try to use paragraphs. Or, are they beyond you?
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 5:05PM
I'm educated, have a decent job, save, make smart decisions with my money... all the things you say I should do.
So, with the idea that I'm complaining because I can't help myself out of the way what else do you have to defend taking from me what is mine so you can retire in style while I get stuck living in a country that's broke as a joke after you die?
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:49AM
I am not taking from you and SS recipients do not live in style. Grow a brain. Your indicated problems have nothing to do with SS/Medicare, but with government funding of their WELFARE. Want to reduce government taxiation stress in your life, vote for Republicans [and reduce government welfare]. Your problems are related to affordable housing, food stanps, rental allowances and other welfare payments instituted by Democrats!!!!!!!!
james wilson| 6.13.11 @ 1:28PM
Let us remember that government employees of a certain level do not pay into the SS scheme. No dummies they.
Oldefarte| 6.13.11 @ 4:02PM
No, old brilliant one, they instead pay into their own [and far superior] retirement system [which allows then to retire at 45-50 with 80-90% of their active govenmentment employee benefits. And why is that, brilliant one? Simple, because of [have you ever heard of SEIU?] their government labor unions, which dictatorially force the taxpayers of this country to pay for the union-excessive wages that they receive. But, hey know go complaining about that, right? Don't want El Chosen One and his deciples getting angry at you, right? Keep on voting them into office, right???????????
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 8:21PM
Pay attention to your nurses. Take your meds. Stop posting.
George S| 6.13.11 @ 1:55PM
There is no easy fix, not even privatization. In order to terminate social security, there must be the reverse benefit effect; it is mathematically impossible without a true trust. When the system started, there was one group of beneficiaries who received all benefit with zero cost; the following year, all benefit with one year cost; continuing for forty five some odd years until benefits were congruent with a lifetime of cost.
To end the process, the reverse must happen: there must be a group who gets zero benefits with a lifetime of cost supporting the system. There is no way around it, even if you do terminate or privatize gradually you can never cover the cost of those receiving benefits. Unless we borrow... then future generation need to pay that back at a rate maybe greater that SSI withholding.
The bottom line is you always run out of other people's money. There is just no way around it without establishing a non-replenishing trust that covers 45 years of benefits.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 2:07PM
Thank you for pointing out, quite clearly, something that the current reciepient generation somehow FAILS to realize. Even my wife's grandmother can't get her head around the fact that it's NOT her money she's getting and that she got robbed, and supported it happening, and now I'm getting robbed to pay her back and can't do anything to stop it short of not paying my taxes and going to jail at the point of a gun.
Anommynous| 6.13.11 @ 2:48PM
"But of course it will work. It is working, in Chile. Workers there have been getting rich on their social security accounts since 1981."
Not just in Chile. Don't forget about the Galveston Plan.
Michael Gabel| 6.13.11 @ 2:50PM
Social Security was sold to the American people, by FDR, as an insurance program. This was deceit. If the government told people that their contributions would NOT be placed in trust and that they WILL be used for general government expenditures, it would have never passed.
The only moral solution, moreover the only true solution to Social Security is privatization.
I wonder how long it will take before the American people, especially the younger generations, realize this.
Skeptics of privatization, obviously statists, do not want to relinquish the revenue, power and control that these tax dollars bring.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 3:01PM
Who pays the phase out, though? Even with privatization, which I would support, someone has to finish paying the bills.
And I vote it's those people who should have known better by reading their Constitution and realized that EVEN IF it was a trust, EVEN IF the promises were kept, EVEN IF it all went according to plan and we lived in a retirement utopia... IT WAS WRONG BECAUSE IT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL. And since they screwed up by not being educated citizens... I say they can pay their own medical bills and eat dog food (which we know is a lie since they have the most money anyhow).
Oldefarte| 6.13.11 @ 4:05PM
SS does not have to be privitized, if the government would be forced to repay the SS retirement funding that it previously stole [in order to fund welfare of various forms]. If privitation proves inevitable, then the Paul Ryan Plan is the only solution possible!!!!!!
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 4:16PM
Means we eat the bill, which I'm fine with. I don't however, agree with privatization of SS. I believe the entire program should be torn down and buried.
It gets paid off according to my above suggestion by government spending reductions in other areas until the bill is completely covered, and then that spending is also removed from the government budget (and NOT moved to some other project(s)).
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 5:34PM
Getting rid of SS and a boat load of other government overreaches into our lives (especially those into the pocketbook) would be wonderful. If that were a real possibility, I would gladly keep paying until all the then defined, but limited, recipients passed on.
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 5:46PM
The only reason it's not a real possibility is the number of people getting paid by those programs that should never have been created in the first place, and the unwillingness of the rest to make the necessary changes because it might make someone feel bad.
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:43AM
Well hopefully you will compile a SH*TPOT full of retirement savings, because you'll need same [if you get rid of SS]!!!!!!!!!
TrueBlue| 6.14.11 @ 4:23PM
Already did thanks, and I'm only 30, so what's your excuse?
TrueBlue| 6.14.11 @ 4:56PM
Oh by the way, I've paid over $10,000 in SS just since I was 18. It's amazing what 4.2% adds up to over a decade and change isn't it? To give you an idea of what I could have done with that; By the time I left high school ( only 4 years) I had made nearly $80,000 in stock investments alone, not counting mutual funds. I only started with $400... Even ignoring the fact that as I gained more money I'd have more to invest, thus exponentially increasing my stock earnings (and admittedly not account for the regular ups and downs of the stock market), best case scenario would have put me over $2 mil I could have earned if the government had not forced me to pay into this little scheme of theirs.
Yes, it helps that I had parents willing to let me make my own decisions regarding my portfolio since they were legally responsible for it since I was a minor, but that's really beside the point. And that was AFTER I lost a bunch of money on a couple bad investments. Sadly, with the way the government keeps getting in the way of business, and the stock market reacting badly to it, there isn't much chance for people to do that kind of thing these days. This is why the fed needs to stay the heck away from other people's money!!! If a 14 year old can make that kind of money just by being smart and learning how the market actually works, then nobody else has any dang excuse as far as I'm concerned!
Alej| 6.13.11 @ 3:40PM
Poor little Yelo... 28 years old and doesn't have a company car, a four-bedroom house or a corner office YET ! !
Keep whining about your pitiful lot in life 10 years after high school... somebody's bound to take pity on you !
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 5:08PM
Actually... my wife and I do well and don't want anyone to pity us. In fact... we want to be able to take care of ourselves (and are planning accordingly and will do just fine) AND to have others do the same.
So... seeing as how it's not an envy issue (after all, my wife and I are FAR ahead of about 95+% of our peers) but one of priciple... can you try to offer an actual defense of SS?
Oldefarte| 6.13.11 @ 4:09PM
Yeah, the Yelo's of the world typically don't have A POT TO PEE IN because their stupid, uneducated, drug addicts, worthless, unambitious, and no doubt still residing in mommie's back bedroom!!!!!
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 5:11PM
If you have a pot to pee in and paid for any of it with SS, then you're welcome. I hope you enjoy it. No need to thank me... I was just paying my taxes knowing I'll never see any of it when I reach your age.
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 10:58AM
No one 'PAID FOR' anything with SS, and its stupid to think that's even possible. SS was designed and is only capable of being a SUPPLEMENTAL RETIREMENT BENEFIT. It is impossible to even approach being able to adequately live [pay one's bills] on SS alone, due to its paltry/minute monetary status. It was intended and is [and forever will be] only a SUPPLEMENTAL source of retirement money. Sadly for a few individuals [because they were too stupid to either/both earn enough income in their working lives or to adequately invest/save for their retirement], SS is all [the sole source] of their retirement income. that is WHY the Roosevelt administration established same, because mony individuals are simply STUPID, and cannot earn an adequate or substantial income due to their lack of intelligence, job skills, or ambition. As to your statement, SS does not have the quantitative ability to pay one's typical bills [w/o other supplemental retirement income] and also, I not going to THANK YOU for your insinuation that you're paying my SS, SINCE I WORKED AND PAID SS TAXES FOR [CONSISTENTLY] THIRTY FIVE YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT/WORKING AND THEREFORE FUNDED MY OWN MEASLY SS BENEFIT THAT I RECEIVE PRESENTLY. If you and your lazy, drugged out generation do as the previous generations of hard working individuals have done before you, SS payments will be available to you also, but if you continue to snort drugs instead of working and continuing the progress made by previous generations, then no SS will [as you pessimistically predict] not be there for you and yours!!!!!!!!
TrueBlue| 6.14.11 @ 4:31PM
And this is why we can't get anywhere on this topic, because people immediately start yelling and screaming insults and obscenities instead of actually coming up with ways to fix it.
This is where I generally get the "Damn you're a cold-hearted #%^*(^$" bit; If you're too stupid or foolish to save for your own retirement, then that's your dang problem, not mine. Stop forcing me to pay for your problems. Make no mistake, it IS being forced on us, we do not have a choice. If I had a choice I would not pay into the system, nor would I collect from it. The fact that it REQUIRES people to pay into it in order to keep operating shows how broken of a system it is (nevermind that it's completely unconstitutional to force a US citizen to have to purchase a product; whether you call it a product or a government program doesn't matter, the intent is a retirement PRODUCT).
Oh, and before you say anything Olde, I've never done drugs. That's the hippy generation of the 60s/70s.
Requisite| 6.13.11 @ 4:18PM
So why do conservatives revere the names of people like Henry Hyde, Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich (15 years ago), Dick Armey, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Pete Domenici, Don Nickles. Current fossils on the Hill like Frank Wolf, Orrin Hatch, Dan Coats, Richard Lugar, Lamar Alexander, Jim Inhofe, Thad Cochran, Mitch McConnell....
Heck, John McCain was the GOP nominee to "win?!?" just 36 months ago.Combined, those men probably have 475 years in Congressional offices.What? They bear no burden? No responsibility for Social Security's abject failure?
All of them were active in politics at this level in some capacity 30 years ago.And they didn't see the Social Security conflagration coming? (of course they did)
What vocal conservative is literally skewering them (the above named eighteen pols) BY NAME today -- so as to place the fear of DISGRACE & DERRISION into the Hill occupants currently in D.C.?
Skip (comment made much earlier today - above), you are a bit too harsh on what you call the immoral, unintelligent, dishonest electorate. You assume none have ever written, called, or spoken to candidates runnning or those in office. You obviously don't attend any of the fundraiser breakfasts or outdoor BBQs that are in full swing every other weekend now across the land (as has been the case the last 5-6 decades). Attendees try to pigeonhole the candidates/office holders on state and national levels on these issues ALL THE TIME. Having done all of that for years (and having worked for a US Senator and briefly for a two Congressmen), I can assure you, they don't listen.
Once more: They really don't listen.
They knew that all these "entitlements" were folly three decades ago AND HAVE DONE NOTHING.
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 4:29PM
And yet people kept on (and keep on) re-electing them. Obviously there were quite a few dummies in there that believed they were listening.
I'm telling you, term limits, no post-office benefits. Maximum time in office, 2 terms.
As for the judicial activists, if they ever make a decision that is not based on a word-for-word interpretation of the Constitution, boot them out too. None of this opinion bull, if opinion has to come into it, they are WRONG. Their entire purpose is to protect the citizens from unconstitutional actions by the other two branches of government, and they have been failing miserably for at least 70 yrs (my memory for pre-WW2 government actions is shakey, so I'll stop there).
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 5:17PM
You're pre-WWII history may be shady... but I bet you could wager a guess.
Yup... they failed then too.
Jefferson noted that he saw as one of the major failings of the Constitution it's weak stance of activist judges and the inability to really keep them in check. Think about it. We can impeach the president, he can Veto Congress... and on paper they can toss judges but that will NEVER happen.
Morgan| 6.14.11 @ 2:58AM
Conservatives don't "revere" any contemporary names with the possible exception of Reagan, and the vote is split on him. The GOP puts these politicians in power and keeps them there; that has little or nothing to do with conservatives think about them.
And the simple, ugly truth is that Ryan's plan makes no changes in SS payouts to speak of; the chart shows spending under his plan to be almost identical to spending under Obama's perspective. It apparently took gut-wrenching courage for Ryan to propose his oh-so-moderate changes to Medicare. None of these folks will ever dare put forth anything serious on Social Security.
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:30AM
It easily fixable by forcing governmental repayment of the $trillions borrowed [ie stolen] from its trust fund and by removing the salary/imcome cap for SS taxiation purposes!!!!
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:39AM
I'm certainly not defending those R's you mentioned, but as bad as they are, you have to remember that DEMOCRATS have controlled this country [the majorities of the House, Senate and Presidency] for my entire substantial lifetime. If there was ever a time when R's had majority control, it only lasted briefly. The problems that this country faces were caused by the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Johnsons, the Clintons, the Carters, and now the Obama's; and the R's in their usual minority statuses were only able to fight losing battles against their outnumbering D opponents. if you truly want problem solving by government, then simply pull the voting lever for the entire/complete Republican ticket in November of next year and beyond, and give the R's the substantial majority that is needed to effect solutions possibly!!!!!!!!!
martin j smith| 6.13.11 @ 4:19PM
I think that a Socialist should be asked to show a movie about how MONEY is harvested from the MONEY TREE and how it is dried and purified and then put in bunches and distributed to every program that requests being fed with money food.
And, that there is no problem except those darn Republican cheapskates who annually complain that we are growing insolvent. And the moview should be called: We are All Happy, We have our Money Tree.
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:28AM
Well, there are only tow political parties, and the only one that I'm familiar with who have at least partially talked about economic/financial solutions are Republicans [while the Democrats have continued down their path of RobinHoodism to feed their indigent constituents more government welfare]. For for me and a few others, there is only one choice available!!!!!!!
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 4:27PM
Except for Pat (above), no one sees SS and Medicare for what they are, and hates them more than I. If generational warfare hastens their demise, then let's start shooting. But, some perspectives are necessary. He knew what he was doing. Once hooked on SS, the populace would never be able to get unhoked. Once beguiled by that, the Feds would forever rule.
There have been only two Boomer Presidents: Clinton and Bush 43. My fellow Boomers and I hated Clinton and did not vote for him, as a bloc, either time. We were bitterly disappointed in "43", although the alternatives were far worse. GGers however, voted for Clinton overwhelmingly, and against Bush 43.
(For purposes of brevity and historical clarity in this thread I will refer to our "presidential eras" without absolving our legislatures from the lion's share of the blame).
Let's start with FDR (but the roots go back much further). He was America's first really socialist president. He didn't hate Hitler; he envied him. He didn't hate Stalin; he sat down with him, and ceded Eastern Europe to him. But FDR was not concerned about far-off foreign lands; his goal was to dominate the USA. And how better to do that than to make citizens afraid of their futures?
Sure, he is famous for uttering the words, "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself," but he instilled a nation with fear and he played it 'til the hilt. Just like any run-of-the-mill snake oil salesman of the past, pitching his poison from the back of a wagon. He was the Master of Ceremonies in a carnival tent, a dealer of drugs in every neighborhood; hooking everyone on his spiel.
Cocaine flushes itself from your body in a few days. Marijuana in a month, or so. But, how long will it take to rid the body politic from the addiction of welfare-statism? Answer: A long, long time. And we may take these words from the Declaration to heart.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."
We have all "patiently suffered" too long. We Boomers get blamed (wrongly), but we will endure it, if you younger folks will throw off the yoke of socialism.
If God is in Heaven, the GGers are in Hell.
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 4:32PM
I apologize for the transpositions and hope that you will be able to read through them.
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:23AM
Let me put Medicare in perspective for you. Retirees from lifetime employment with corporations are transitioned from GROUP/EMPLOYEE to that of RETIREE health insurance coverage [dollarwise from $50/month to $400/month], with the latter's premium increasing to $600/month and upwards with ever succeeding year within retirement. At 65 the choices for retirees are either the $600/month or the Medicare premium of $120/month. All of you currently working stiffs will be faced with the similar situation/choice when you turn 65, so unless your name is Rockefeller, Kennedy, Gates, Buffett, Trump etc; I strongly suggest that you not moronically follow through on your claimed desire to get rid of SS and Medicare, and instead support political candidates [not Democrats either] who will offer political solutions to fix/maintain these government programs!!!!!!!!
skip| 6.14.11 @ 12:54PM
Name one reason why health insurance should be any different from purchasing than auto insurance, home insurance, or life insurance.
tsd| 6.13.11 @ 5:13PM
I have paid in over $300,000 for SS and would be happy to give it all up today if they would end it now...not that I ever plan to see any of it. The big piss off is they still want me to keep paying in until it tanks somewhere in the future. Who gives, who gets, seems a never ending pss'in match that just gets one tired.
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 5:39PM
Your's is the spirit we all need. It is spelled "Independence."
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:10AM
If you've truly paid $300000 into SS, you must be in Bill Gates' class, financially speaking!!!!!
tsd| 6.14.11 @ 11:41AM
Self employed, but the employer contribution is still part of your wage package and a cost of employment. If you really think the employer contribution is not paid/earned by you enjoy... the dream. Not hard to do when you work for 40+ years and max your earning. You do not have to be Bill Gates to max out. They still keep taking till you quit taking a wage and get out of the pay-in system.
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 5:24PM
Truman was a shadow and Ike was a caretaker. Then, we got JFK, son of Joe and brother of Teddy, the hero of Chappaquidick. Neither was a Boomer, but the GGers loved them both.
Who followed? More socialists, that's who.
Stay tuned for more, or join in the real conversation. Look up to see the way out of this mess.
(Orlet's column of las Thursday and the comments contain a lot more thoughts. Mine, and others'.)
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 5:35PM
You are all cowards. You accept the other guy's premise: that SS must exist.
Yelo, et. alia. Enjoy all your bitching about your forbears; it won't fix the problem. Take the baton, or drop it, but just stop complaining.
YeloStalyn| 6.13.11 @ 6:09PM
I would hardly call it being a coward. I would gladly do what must be done to end the program. It's inherently wrong and to end it would justify the sacrifice necissary.
But to be stuck with the bill because everyone else simply says, "But I was promised!" is unjust and wrong.
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:03AM
If you drop, I guarantee that you druggies will end up walking the mean streets of urban America with nothing of monetary value in your senior years. It is easily fixable, and is/should be maintained as a source of SUPPLEMENTAL [not total] retirement income!!!!!
Kent Steward| 6.13.11 @ 5:45PM
I'm 63. In three years, just give me a lump sum of what I've paid into Social Security, plus reasonable interest, and I won't complain. I have no idea how much that would be, but it seems fair. Comparing me to a welfare recipient and ignoring all the money I've paid in does not seem fair.
TrueBlue| 6.13.11 @ 5:49PM
No problems with that from me, I'm even for making it tax-free since you were already taxed on the original income that money was pulled from anyway.
Handy| 6.13.11 @ 6:04PM
I'm 62, and don't even need a lump sum.
I just want to avoid all the paperwork.
A quiet retirement does not include a bunch of meddling bureaucrats sending snail mail by a defunct post office to me.
Oldefarte| 6.14.11 @ 11:07AM
Don't know what moron would term SS as WELFARE, but they had to be an imbecile. As you indicated, you PAY FOR your SS over your working lifetime of employment, and its comparable to depositing money [though forcibly by the government] in a bank savings account [and that was/is its intent]!!!!!!!!!
TrueBlue| 6.14.11 @ 4:37PM
Unfortunately the government took that money and "invested" it in projects of their choosing, so we are not in a situation that requires us to pay into a system that will not be available for most people that are currently under 40. It will always be that way until we either have a huge population explosion (which will then create the same problem we're in again years down the road), or we end the program now and shoulder the burden so the next generation is not screwed out of their money like we were. Whether that comes from reduced government "benefits" and reduction of worthless government agencies like the EPA, or we are forced to pay it off for the rest of ours lives, I could care less if it means that my children will not be faced with this problem later on.
I do not believe in leaving my children with a problem that we CAN fix just because it means harder times for me. That is our RESPONSIBILITY as adults, to leave the world a better place for our children than the one we were given. If that offends you, then obviously you still have some maturing to do, no matter how old you are.
Jenny| 6.13.11 @ 6:02PM
There is hope. My 18 year old son has a fit every day about the news... and what Obama and the liberals in government are doing to his future! Anyway, when he isn't doing that, he is starting his own business, leading a local Generation Joshua Club, and he enjoys playing the piano more than wasting time on video games. He was super bummed that he didn't turn 18 until after the election and couldn't vote.
Requisite| 6.14.11 @ 1:07AM
Jenny, it is good that you have a son like that. Typically the offspring turn out that way when they have good adult parent examples in the formative years.
Make sure that your son knows how important it will be in his first time at the balloting station: Primary day next spring. That vote day is often much more important for potentially positive outcomes than the voting dates in November.
WhiteBikerTrash| 6.13.11 @ 8:42PM
Excuse me while I repeat myself,
Social Security needs to be deconstructed!!
I was born back in 1957, I knew in the early 70s that there would be no Social Security for people my age.
It has been a Pozi scheme from the start and like any other Ponzi, it must collapse under it's own weight of promise!
My suggestion, for current recipients, Freeze all benefits, then freeze all new admissions. Make an offer to all people born between Jan 1 1945 through Dec 31 1960 you receive all of your "contribution" plus 2% per year interest in one lump sum, or collect SS at the frozen level after you reach eligibility age.
You must sign up for one or the other.
Stop collecting SS Taxes.
Return all SS contributions to anyone born between Jan 1 1961 to Dec 31 1970.
66% to Jan 1 1971 to Dec 31 1980.
33% Jan 1 1981 to Dec 31 1990.
none returned to Jan 1 1990 and later. The Government is now out of the retirement business! The returned monies will be spent or invested. People will take responsibility for their own retirement, or not!
My napkin scribbling, with the information I have tells me that the final cost of my plan will be about 33 Trillion Dollars as opposed to the over 200 Trillion dollar obligation that SS currently carries.
Sarbojit| 6.13.11 @ 9:56PM
In India, we had a saying - if you are not a socialist at 17 years old, you are a fool; if you still a socialist at 35, you are a bigger fool. Assuming the average school-leaver is 17, I am afraid you will have to wait another 18 years for sense to sink in. Of course, by another 18 years, Social Security will be bust. Too late.
Jim| 6.13.11 @ 10:34PM
Instead of Privatization, it's time to call it Personalization of Social Security - much more appealing and less demagoging.
I ran the math on 10% savings for minimum wage earners from age 20-65, 45 years, and at a modest 5% return they could retire on full income. That simple calculation shows you what a lousy plan SS is for anyone - even the working poor.
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David| 6.14.11 @ 11:17AM
It seems to me that our young people are so desensitized to debt that they really know nothing else. Dad says, "I think I'll buy a new super duper car ,I can get 60 month payment plan, and I can take out an equity loan on the house to help make the down payment", Mom says, "we need all new curtains and dishes and a new el Grande TV, we can put it on the credit card", Kid says "I wanna go to college, I can get a gov't loan and be in debt $200K when I get out but they tell me I'll make a lot of money so I can pay it off." Debt has no meaning for them personally so when an "honest" man stands up and tells them the country is bankrupt it's a total disconnect. Dishonest politicians stand up and tell them we need to keep going deeper into debt (eg raise the debt ceiling) sounds reasonable, Dad and Mom keep going deeper, Dr. college prof. tells them to go into debt, etc. ,etc. Debt has no meaning to them.
Richard Baker| 6.15.11 @ 8:51PM
When the young ones discover the mess that their parents and grandparents created they are going to be mad as Hell.
jgo| 6.17.11 @ 2:26PM
We have far far too many children to bring the population down to sane levels and relieve the over-crowding. It's the over-population and over-crowding that has helped support the leftists' draconian minute regulation of life, antithetical to the principles of individual liberty.
"When the young ones discover the mess that their parents and grandparents created they are going to be mad as Hell."
Why do you write in the future tense?
jgo| 6.17.11 @ 2:29PM
Let us opt out. All of us. Not just those under 65, under 55, under 45, or under 35. Everybody. Now! Not 10, 20, or 30 years down the road. Give back some fraction of the money that was extorted from us. Even if it were only 10% we'd all be ahead and well free of the scam.
Badbobcat| 9.3.11 @ 6:38PM
Many politicians and academics continue to tap dance around Social Security and Medicare Ponzi operation core issues. Moreover, they are politically compelled to condescendingly emphasize only the contrarian fine points. An appropriate analogy regarding our grand national Social Security Ponzi operation is that you are now looking directly into the bore of a charged cannon. Consequently, what do you really care about the technical details of its ancestry?
Young Americans, please take great caution because the common disastrous trait of all Ponzi operations or schemes is that initial participants come out with a big smile and smelling like a rose. But an inviolate truth of Nature dictates that many mid-term and all late-term players in the Ponzi games 'get the shaft'.
Read More;
http://www.americanfairhoperet.....esign.html