Boomer here. The assumption underlying Social Security is that age demographics would continue as the have since the founding. Namely, each generation would be larger and more productive than the last.
Where are your children Gens X and Y? You have sacrificed your future on the altar of reproductive rights. It is you who are reproducing below replacement rate.
I, like many of my despised generation, am well into my "golden years". I still work, am still taxed, and pay more taxes than I receive in benefits.
Would it really make a difference if gen X were larger? Wouldn't the result be the same?
I mean don't you think it really goes back to the whole concept of Social Security being a short-term "fix" that turned into a scam, in which it would be natural for anyone paying into to expect their share after paying into it?
These programs are so engrained in our culture that expectations and reality are one in the same. In other words, expectations of the impossible turn into reality. Which becomes undetectable due to the entitlement a person would naturally expect to receive the entitlement itself. The stupid idea of these entitlement programs has become expected; precisely because people have forgotten (and therefore can't see) they were stupid ideas from the beginning.
The scam has become an expectation; not an idea that should be debated for solutions.
"The most dangerous ideas are not those that challenge the status quo. The most dangerous ideas are those so embedded in the status quo, so wrapped in a cloud of inevitability that we forget they are ideas at all."
yes, and the change from "average recipients gets zero years of payouts" to "gets 12 years of payouts" due to increased lifespan would have been too much to carry for any demographic pattern, especially when compounded by COLA adjustments.
the whole system was ponzi from the start and could only end one way.
theoretically, the safety valve was "paygo" where payments out cannot exceed payments in, but there is zero chance that is honored and honestly, it does not matter. it's medicare that's the real killer and that shortfall is multiples of SS.
I'm 87 y/o, still working full time and pay in the max Social Security tax every year, have worked since age 15, and thus paid in for 72 years, of course much more in later higher earning years. Didn't start taking Soc. Sec. benefits till age 70.
Signed up for Medicare age 65, as individual health insurance unobtainable after age 65 in private insurance market. Medicare deducts $587/month from my Soc. Sec. check (income based increase). Social Security was signed in to law the year before I was born. I don't believe there ever was a "trust fund", as Soc. Sec. money is categorized as a tax, not insurance, and is constantly raided for general revenue. Initial seed money for SS came from the government, of course, but I have wondered if SS would be in a lot better shape if it had been treated as "investment", i.e., invested like my IRA, with steady growth over long period of time. Dunno. As things are, I realize something must be done to keep SS viable for the future. I struggle (some) with the guilt over the fact that by still working, I'm "stealing a job from a young person", and that Health Czar under Obama, Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, is widely quoted as stating that in his opinion, useful life is "completed" at age 75. I do wonder how he will feel about that in 9 years when he turns 75. So my other "guilt" is that I'm 12 years past my "use by" date per central planners like Dr. Emanuel. I joke sometimes that one of the reasons I keep working and paying taxes is to "prove" that I'm still "useful" and maybe they won't euthanize me.
I know what must be done to keep SSN viable. Vote for TRUMP #1 and then #2 the confiscation of all the stollen money during the Bush, Bush, Obama and Biden Reign of TERROR on American soil and to our military, money from their private bank accounts, properties, Islands and Overseas scam accounts. 4 trillion dollars missing from the FED Reserve 3 months before Obamas term ended without any explanation. Killary's "MISSING" State Department 500 million, as well as the Haiti millions. Joe’s admin has been robbing us blind with 113BILLION supposedly to Ukraine UNACCOUNTED FOR. Obamas billions in Indonesian bank account, https://www.facebook.com/wreg3/videos/video-judge-joe-brown-on-supporting-trump-vs-obama/1694399750684724/ multimillion mansion in Dubau that was exposed and quickly covered up by Media. The money from the BUDGET voted for over and over with Palosi that builds and maintains the private Islands of Biden, Pedo Jeffrey, Oprah, Bezos, FB Owner, Sir Branson, Previous Twitter Tycoon. WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED over and over and over. GATES FOUNDATION BILLIONS for poisoning the entire population, our food, our animals, our skies, our water. He got his money from GOV GRANTS...YOUR MONEY! Clinton, Bush Soros foundation money...TAKE IT like they took it from us! All those private jets, yacht's bought with our money...Take em! F em!! Their WEALTH must be confiscated and returned to the People like you who worked all their lives and to the people yet to be born who have nothing but bills accumulating. These people are all going BYEBYE very soon to a nice island called CUBA to be executed for TREASON.... After we take back what they stole, we can begin again to audit the books for the FIRST TIME IN HISTORY. With TRUMP as president, we cn begin to pay off the debt, and sell and drill baby drill. Its also been exposed that the minerals discovered under the seabed could erase our entire debt. Those mineral rights are being claimed by the ELITE SCUM as I type this. WE THE PEOPLE Must not let them steal the future from us.
What this article will not tell you is that these nodules are worth hundreds of trillions of dollars and perhaps beyond Trillions of dollars and the FIGHT is on to recover them for the greedy few.
The fact that you struggle over "stealing a job" and that there is some validity to this concern shows that there's something missing from the original post, and that something is the fact that the real risk for the future is human obsolescence, not scarcity and deprivation. Admittedly the accounting has become so tortured and absurd that some sort of catastrophic adjustment seems inevitable, but there's no real material scarcity here.
Being productive is not stealing a job from anyone. Just as the machines introduced during the Industrial Revolution weren’t stealing jobs either. Keep working guilt free.
Above a certain income level you generally pay more into Social Security than you get out. Rather than disenfranchise people based on receiving government benefits it makes more sense to not allow people to vote if they do or did not make sufficient money to fund their own benefits (and those of others). The top few percent of income earners have kept the system running for years (forget the top quintile). I agree the Medicare deficit dwarfs Social Security, but it's an insurance plan funded again (through higher taxes and IRMA penalties) by people who worked hard and saved money so they have high incomes in retirement. I am not seriously suggesting income-based voting, but it makes more sense than disenfranchising the only people who paid for the benefits they and others receive. You note that democracy is itself not self-sustaining, so the real answer is to reduce the amount of "democracy" by restoring the American Republic. The American founders (who knew classical history) understood that democracy was the worst form of government so they founded a Republic that was less likely to self-destruct. Democracy is an aggressive cancer that cannot easily be cured once it is established so (absent deus ex machina) we should expect increasing tyranny.
Of course, the founders wanted only property owners to be able to vote - those who had a stake in what the government was to do. And that despite most revenues coming from goods.
agreed, it was destined to fail, but they've papered over the fact the entire idea was grounded in a failure to launch...because the launch pad was merely a house of cards to begin with.
The launch pad never truly existed and this rocket has burned all the cards (short-term "fixes"). The "burn-rate" is faster than any cards they can add. And it was from the beginning.
I agree with you fellows but it sounds to me like the history of SS and its bastardization is the exact definition of a ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff would be envious.
There are a lot of problems other than Medicare but Medicare is a big one. Our medical system has continuously push out lifespan without really improving health-span. Why is it not ok to say the quite part out loud? There are too many old people using Medicare to squeeze out the last few years of their lives in very poor health at astronomical costs. I do not believe in euthanasia. But there has to be a happy medium between killing and prolonging life at all costs. My wife and I have had discussions (read arguments) regarding this. She claims you are playing God to remove people from life support. My reply is why aren't you playing God by putting them on life support to begin with? I'm sure I'm going to catch heck from a lot of folks for this.
That's a good argument. Also, though, remember that many old people get "heroic medicine" against their wishes. Because someone in the family overrides everything with "we must do all we can for mom." And the medical system profits from that.
If medicare is the issue, might it not be more realistic to try to change the insane incentive structure of the medical industry rather that trying to abrogate fundamental rights of the most powerful voting block in existence?
Admittedly it's clearly going to be hard. Good AI has outperformed human diagnosticians for many decades, but doctors still maintain their stranglehold. Somehow we need to get to the point of an AI + auto mechanic view of medicine.
Yes it makes sense to change the incentive structure, but AI is a problem, not the answer. AI generates mindless algorithms that have been used for years to treat all problems virtually identically regardless of nuance which is one reason health is so much worse now. Remember the ventilators and Remdesivir treatments mindlessly mandated during Covid? If you want to kill the maximum number of people then AI and algorithmic medicine is the way to go. In that sense it solves the Medicare problem, but it kills a lot of younger people too. In the US pharmaceutical companies have a stranglehold on Medicine that distorts incentives and sickens the population. They need to be reeled in, their legal immunities abrogated, and drug prices legislatively reduced. Freed of these sociopaths we can hope the medical professional will regain its integrity. As you say, admittedly it will be hard.
AI beats human docs at diagnosis and has for decades. This isn't too surprising since it's a heavily memory/db limited activity. AI has no penetration into medicine as currently practiced and isn't to blame for the lunatic covid response at all. In fact it's a fair guess it would have voted against vents in the first place.
My grandmother, who died at 104 years old, believed she was fully entitled to her social security check. (She was very conservative otherwise.) My husband tried to explain to her the problems the system causes, but nope, as far as she was concerned, she had paid for it!
As much as it pisses me off to see my money each pay period stolen for social security, I am making my plans such that I never have to be on that dole when I get to 65. (Not that there will be any left anyway.) Entitlements, even ones that I contributed to, are a leash anyway that give the government power over me.
good luck with that. the govt limits how much you can put away tax free, then does everything to destroy what you have saved - 0.1% interest on savings accounts, 2% for CD's, bonds 4%, etc etc etc. We tried to do the same & our investments & savings were doing good under Trump. Then Biden came in & every statement shows loss after loss after loss. We had plenty of money to live comfortably & travel a little, but post Trump, it's worrisome as property taxes have gone up, groceries, insurance, gas, etc. We have no physical earning power as we can't do the jobs we once did, so we have to rely on investments now & at our age, can't put anything into the high risk, high return investments because we don't have time to ride them out. But politicians don't have that problem, they don't live under the rules they impose on others - they can decree an increase in their pay, their benefits, etc. They don't live in the real world, they live in the world of payoffs & graft.
I’m not sure “suckered” is the right word. We were forced into it. I would have been happy to take my (and my employer’s) SS “contributions” and invest them myself. I was not given that choice.
Yup. I had a tiny business and I paid double. I didn’t have a choice. I worked until my full and I’m taking it. I didn’t create this system and I worked hard.
Hubby had said this for decades! They have stolen from us all with the SS tax scheme.
Of course the actual money we had invested on our own was decimated by the financial ruin of 2008. And now the deficit/inflation train that never stops rolling is picking up steam. The wreck, (when it inevitably comes) is going to be catastrophic. I pray constantly for God’s grace to be with us all for when the party really gets started.
No boomer voted for the Social Security Act, which was signed into law in 1935. The oldest boomers are now 77. Say they got their first part-time, recorded income job at 16 and retired at 65. That's almost 50 years of forced payments into Social Security. What a nest egg they would have accumulated if they could have safely invested that money themselves. It's worse than a ponzi scheme. No one is forced to put their money in one of those.
Yes, and nothing like the government to encourage the kind of divide and conquer strategy that sets the generations against each other, instead of looking at the source of the problem.
I’m an Aussie Gen X. I have 3 kids receive no benefits and am in the top tax bracket. I pay more into the system then over 90% of the population. I don’t want to receive any SS or benefits. Taxation is theft pure and simple. I refuse to legitimise their system by filling out forms and gratefully receiving my stipend.
That was govt's plan - get mom out of the house, so govt can be in charge of raising them. And govt has done a great job of raising clones of themselves.
This. My boomer parents lived in an average house in an average suburb with an average mortgage (4xavg wage) and had 3 kids, mom was stay at home until we were self reliant enough. We have a sufficient and average upbringing. An X or Y in the same averages......they'd be lucky to be servicing an average mortgage (8x avg wage) both slogging their guts out at work. The system made X, Y and Z debt slaves imho, they're not focused on populating, just self-serving survival.
The younger woman in my family know the only “right” they earned by being co-opted into the workforce willy-nilly was the right to be exhausted at all times.
It was always just a way to get more taxes out of people and feed the beast system.
Study just released said it "changes" the personality of the people who use all the time, it also changes their preference in partners, who coulda knowed?
It makes sense that a woman who controls her own fertility might choose a man for other qualities than breadwinning ability and eagerness to have kids, or even delay/forego marriage, since its main purpose is childrearing anyhow.
But becoming a parent definitely causes personality changes. Folks find themselves turning into their own parents, often to their shock and horror.
I'm glad I turned into my parents. They were awesome - but I didn't realize it until after I left home & had to fend for myself. Kids these don't have to do that - too many safety nets for them (insurance til 26, school loans paid, living in parents basements, etc) but it's not really their fault, it's the politicians that can't be bothered to do what's right, only what keeps them in office.
You filed it in the wrong place gato. I'm 71, born in 52. Early boomer. My children are all millenials. GenX are not all boomers kids. Boomers were 1946 to 64. GenX are 1965 to 1980. Boomers born in 1955 were just starting families at 21 yrs old in 1976. 11 years after the first GenX babies. See your second reference. X-Axis for reference.
boomers are from 1946-64 so the early boomers were having kids around 1966-67, right at the leading edge of gen X. you're more mid pack for a boomer than early.
basically all my peers' parents are boomers and i'm center gen X.
Why is it up Gato? Or do you support QE and 0% interest rates for the rich? Libertarian values until it comes to the asset market?
And lets not forget about 401ks, which i'm not allowed to take in my paycheck and do with as i please. They defaulted on pensions, what makes you think they won't default on those also? Or perhaps they'll do what Nancy P wanted to in 2008 and roll them into SS. No Ideology is 100% correct, ever.
But you know, he does paintings now and hugs Michelle Obama so all is forgiven. Why are we still in Iraq again? Still searching for those weapons of mass destruction i guess.
Are you really going to try and play the Generational card? Fine, if the boomers would have taken their lumps in 08 for the fake economy they created and let asset prices fall to a sustainable level, had not indoctrinated the females with feminism and all the other stupid hippie shit, maybe the generation you birth and shackled would have had more kids. Nothing grows forever except cancer, until it kills you. So you know, SS was supposed to have a growing population is a stupid assertion or a ponzi scheme.
The larger "economy" is heavily influenced by politics. Politicians arguably created both the boom and the bust.
"Saving" value can't really be done except against one's society. That can be family, which may die or not want to take care of us; or it can be personal possessions, which can be lost or stolen from us; or it can be bank money, which can be devalued or disappear if the bank goes bust; or it can be a tax-based pension from the government, which can evaporate if the government is overthrown or the politicians find they have other priorities.
The tragedy of life is that we become old and feeble, and can't scrounge for ourselves so well any more. When that happens, we either die, or we become dependent on our society, one way or another.
I’m gen x but born of parents that were the silent generation. My 6 siblings are all boomers. Same with my husband. He’s gen x but parents were the silent generation. We both are different than are siblings and don’t quite fit in,
How about the full congress is replaced with every new election so they can use their time there to do the right things, instead of doing what they have to do to be re-elected?
Wasn’t congress supposed to have real jobs and not be lifetime politicians in one way or another?
Not simply boomers. LEFTIST boomers. Feminist boomers. "Environmentalist" boomers. And lets not forget our elected so-called representatives who have known this was coming for at least 3 decades and done zip, zero, nada to fix it. And while Y and Z whine and complain, they are too brainwashed, indoctrinated, and entitled to lift a finger to save themselves and the country from the New Dark Age we are rushing headlong into. WWII was winding down when I was born, so I likely won't be here to see what abundance, greed, apathy, and epidemic mental illness can do to a once great nation and its once great people...
Yes and no. It was the agricultural pharmaco industrial complex that tanked the population rates, your "green revolution" bill arrived. So there's absolutely no connection to "boomers or genX'ers", except that the boomers h happened to be the generation in the hot seat when it started 🤔🤦♀️🤦♀️
This occurred in every westernized country globally.
You wanted to know their solution for the coming fiscal collapse?
They already implemented in 2020.
The current 20-35yrs, and 36-45yrs are dying/disabled in rates at 9sigma levels (It's freaking the insurance underwriters out so much, they a are discussing the collapse of the industry!).
Which is good (🤦♀️) because governments don't have any money left for SS after 2027 anyway. There's no money in the kitty😐🤔😉🤷♀️
True, that boomers enshrined abortion as a part of “health care”, which is now collapsing as expected. But eliminating boomers from voting by tying it to medicare, and SS would likely produce more leftward election results for a good long while, even if elections become genuine.
Really, it’s time to adapt to the inevitability of collapse and start building anew. Who is supporting web3, for just 1 example?
You're ignoring his real point though, "you started it ner ner" doesn't really address the reality that a big chunk of the problem is as he says, WE (stop calling us "them") are having fewer and fewer children.
Today's average new "family" is a single mother with a single kid, with an awful lot of the younger peeps not marrying at all. There are some good reasons for that; if you're a man living in a Western country today then getting married and having kids is like committing suicide in a clown suit.
Yep, let’s play into the divide and conquer narrative. It’s always been so helpful in the past, gato. We are all getting screwed over, but at a minimum, promises ought to be kept.
I remember my outrage at a gas station in my beater car and making way less than median income while paying 15% self employment SS taxes ($4,500 on $30,000 income back in the day) and the old retired guy at the next pump was filling up his Cadillac.
It’s awful, but we are all in this mess together. I can’t even count the number of ways SS is effed up, but let’s retroactively appropriate the politicians bank accounts instead of getting into an intergenerational fight.
This is the catch. I'd prefer that We the Little People were, dare I say, permitted to make our own choices as to whether or even if we plan for our own retirement.
The money you paid it was stolen in the sense that all taxes/transfers are theft. It was taken from you, and given to a retiree. It wasn't saved or invested or put in a lock box for later. It's gone.
originally, SS was only to pay for utilities - people didn't have high property taxes - they owned their houses outright & only needed help with utilities. They had gardens, fished, you went in with another couple & bought half a cow/pig from the butcher. But that's been scrubbed from history.
I think we can blame it on both generations. I think Sowell said it perfectly:
"One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again."
We just can't stop flirting with socialism. The most insidious form; "silent" socialism where everyone accepts that the burden in the future is acceptable to be passed to the subsequent generations.
I, like many in my generation, would never vote to participate in a ponzi scheme.
Four children. I have always worked. I have always paid tax. And I will likely never receive "benefits". How about you just let me stop paying in after 30+ years of it and I'll agree to let you keep what you've already stolen *and* fund my own retirement?
What generation was it that started the bs feminist movement, again? My miserable father and stepmother say hi.
We boomers did not KNOW that it was a Ponzi scheme! We were repeatedly assured that it was all a fiscally sound ‘saving for retirement’ program, paying for itself. Little by little, the details of Social Security changed into it morphed into a Ponzi scheme, just like the rest of government funding!
From a boomer to a boomer - you chose not to know. The problems el gato outlined have been known for 30+ years. No action because social security is the third rail of politics.
Wow, you're mad at me for castigating you but not at el gato, who called us locusts! And note I said us. I am 74, my husband 75. I believe el gato has a point, in that every voter receives largesse from the Feds for their vote. But I am disappointed by the blame game, blame the boomers for everything. My entire voting life, I have voted for candidates who claimed to want to control the size and cost of government. With the exception of the Gingrich years (Newt was my congressman) I failed, in that campaign promises were not kept, or, alternatively my candidate lost. Collective guilt doesn't wash. I pay income taxes on my SS (85% of total benefits received are taxed), for what it's worth. I would vote for major SS reform, and Medicare reform; el gato's proposal would prohibit that vote. And he doesn't address the lion in the room; the poorest SS beneficiaries. Our benevolent government would just create a welfare program to replace the lost benefits
I’m not angry. I just think that blanket condemnations aren’t helpful. The elders, you and I, among them, have been trapped by all the lies. I see that as sad and unfortunate, since most people never imagined the future burden on their children and grandchildren.
And I have no idea how to solve this hideous problem.
I didn’t ‘choose’ - I was fooled. When you’re young, you tend to believe financial ‘experts’ who have all the graphs and charts and data to convince you. If I knew then, like I know now, how corrupt the entire system is!
And it’s not like we ever had a ‘choice’ about SS. We never got to vote on it or choose to opt out. It’s the Big Government legacy of FRD’s New Deal back in the 1930s.
The difference is, this lie, and the even worse (perhaps the single worst economic/social lie in the history of the US) the Great Society lie of LBJ and Co. was forced on the populace. No one had a choice...sort of like covid spikeshots/antisocial distancing/masking/whatever except even less avoidable.
Almost all problems can be put squarely at the feet of the Federal Government.
The Founders had it better -- the only people who could vote were landowners -- the equivalent, for practical purposes, of wage earners today. The original structure of the country was set up essentially as EGM has outlined. The erosion to "if you breath [or even if you don't in Chicago and other blue cities] you should be able to determine how others' money is spent" is something the Founders would have found utterly abhorrent...that is why the Constitution was not structured that way. Universal suffrage is a pox on effective governance...the 75% who do not contribute are always happy to vote for the other guys to give them more. This is not hard to understand.
If the government said it, believe the opposite. I was not around at that time, but to me (as a mid Gen X) I have never believed the government about anything. Our founders were clear on the nature of government a couple of hundred years before I was born.
Democrats have always lied about SS, implying there was a lock box or some other stupid metaphor. There was never any lockbox. It didn't morph. It was a Ponzi scheme from its inception.
Yes, you’re right - it was a Ponzi scheme from the start. But we were TOLD otherwise! I remember reading one financial -advice column after another, throughout the 80s, 90s, and so on, assuring everyone that SS was fully funded, don’t worry, you retirement funds will always be there, blah, blah, blah. It’s just like every other aspect of government funding - we are trillions of dollars in debt, yet the politicians and central bankers keep telling us, ‘no problems here, the government is on sound financial ground’. Bull potatoes!
The simplest explanations I've received as actuary for the last 30 years as to why Social Security would never go bankrupt
(a) The government can reduce benefits - increase full retirement age, increase inflation more than benefits
(b) The government can increase taxes to cover increased payments. You'll receive your benefits, you'll just have to give them back to the government in taxes.
SS does have great benefit to the government, since the "Trust Fund" is invested in government obligations, i.e. the government spends the money now, and pays it back later (see above)
Also, as far as I can tell the SS taxes they collect are included in gross income, so we're paying taxes on money we don't receive.
I'm a late boomer, people have been calling SS a ponzi scheme for at least 30 years that I can remember
The problem is that so many of you not only ignored those of us who were telling you it was a pyramid scheme, but cheered on the polticians who vilified us. "They want to push Granny off a cliff, etc, etc." They called us names, retailed every stupid lie, pretended that rain fell up and the sky was green, all to ensure their share of the funny-money before the music stopped.
The music has stopped. And you burnt all the chairs. Maybe it is far past time that the people who are easily fooled stop making decisions for the rest of us.
I know boomers and pre-boomers who recognized the ponzi scheme. Even if the money had not been stolen for other uses, the increasing lifespan was a wrecking ball. Emptying the fund for other government spending, and collapsing the system with illegal immigrants was done purposely. Now the plan is to shrink the lifespan, and they've managed to cut some years off rather suddenly. We were never meant to retire for 30 years.
Still I'd like to get some of what is and has been forcibly taken from me against my will. Probably won't happen.
At least I have some useful information give or sell, depending on your preference. :-D
What do you do when there is generational poverty? Bad education and bad parenting? I am 64 and the changes in my lifetime where money is involved is nothing short of seismic. There were pensions, healthcare that was affordable, a sense of pride having a job, community, communities structure around heritages, little Italy, little Chinatown or religious affiliation. You knew your neighbors, and families grew up in neighborhoods. Everyone knew bad times, heartbreak and make do.
Once money was made the centerpiece of everything we all changed because we had to, we on some basic level knew our survival instincts would kick in and they did. Our government has a lot to answer for, and the people in it are in an alternate reality. There are so many deals, corruption, favors, underhanded and undermining forces in play right now.
I honestly don’t know how I did it. I bought a house in a not great neighborhood. I drove a beat up car, went to school at night, and was making under 30k a year. I was given basic advice put money away in your 401k when working in banking 1980s. I also knew not to marry or have kids. I married when I turned 35. It was love, right time, and maybe just pure luck. What others take for granted, nuclear family, income coming in, knowledge of how money works, basic life skills, checking account balances, hard work, playing to your strengths and how to deal with downturns in your life are simply not taught, whether it be school or home.
Hubby and I actively talk about what will happen to us if ss becomes needs bases. Lots of people could care less about voting if they get a check, public housing, food stamps, are told what to do, when and where.
As I get older the choices I make are fraught with some pretty bad consequences either way. Ultimately I won’t have a say in how my life will progress. There will be graphs, diagrams, essays, public opinions on how I should live. God help us all. I am simply one of those everyday people.
Our children were sacrificed to pay for the benefits handed out by the government over the period of 1933-present day. Dependency ratio is everything, and it goes into a death spiral the moment the government starts handing out entitlements- suddenly working age people are not only working to sustain themselves and their children, but to sustain complete strangers on the government tit.
We were TOLD to have fewer children! Dr. Paul Erlicch’s “The Population Bomb” was the ‘we’re all going to die from climate change’ issue of the 60s and 70s. “Too many people on the planet -stop procreating!”
Moral of the story: don’t fall for whatever the ‘doomsday’ advice du jour tells you!
Choosing or failing to have enough kids? Oh please!
That's exactly what the skimmers running the country want. Did you miss the bioweapons genocidal attack on population and reproductivity the last 3 yrs?
I'm not quietly taking the blame for trying to get my vastly deflated money back. I'm not the entity that didn't do what the law demanded. US "leadership" fooked up, not me.
This is not a boomer cause. This is a failure of govt leadership.
I'm a boomer that had two children that gave me 13 grandchildren & 3 great grandchildren, all gainfully employed except the greats. I think I created my own "retirement" group. ;)
PS: I would have had more kids, but I couldn't....
The money you paid into Social Security is not 'your money', any more than the money you were taxed to pay for bombs or EBT cards is still 'your money'.
The fundamental problem with Social Security is that every generation has believed what you believed, but that type of system cannot go on forever.
The crime was that voters weren't wise enough to this when it could have been stopped.
This is another great point people often get hoodwinked by.
If people are even aware their employer pays half of their Social Security contributions, they probably think they're sticking it to The Man.
In reality, our payroll taxes are twice as much as our paychecks show. The government just counts on most people being too stupid or apathetic to realize that.
I'm in the same boat; at 76 I am fortunate to be healthy and still working. I do not use Medicare unless an absolute crisis occurs and I must. (as in I treat myself with alternative herbs, etc.) I see others in my same age group who are on the medical merry-go-round. They have their constant wellness check-ups, are on prescription drugs and have surgery after surgery and medical event after medical event!
The medical system today is a large part of the problem, the government is the other part. Instead of people taking care of themselves, they depend on the government and all the rules the government imposes on them and on the medical practitioners create a drain on the finances and it doesn't cure the problem or help the people. It DOES, however, create billions of dollars for the drug companies.
If only we could introduce an experimental gene therapy that reduced the life expectancies of Americans in general & Boomers in particular. It'd be hard to get them to take this jab, so we'd probably have to scare them - tell them it's the only way to stop a deadly disease that otherwise would have killed them. And then, of course, people would get wise to it because other people started dying...Well, then we'd better control the media, make it impossible to get that truth out until it's too late. If only such a thing were possible. Unfortunately, it's not because the CDC and FDA are too concerned about public health to allow such a dangerous jab to become widespread. Thank God our government is only looking out for us & would never act upon its financial incentives to kill us.
Don't forget Medicaid recipients. You would have to convince families that their loved ones who are physically or intellectually or developmentally disabled that they were more at risk than the general population from the virus, so they would need first priority and extra doses.
I’m not seeing the mass death that would be needed. Am I missing it? (Genuinely asking as I believe this was a major reason the vaccine was manufactured. But so far all the people I know who took the jab are just utilizing MORE health services. Especially the boomers on Medicare. They aren’t dying from what I can tell.)
yeah, they have all kinds of turbo cancers, immune system issues, heart problems, blood clots, etc, thanks to those jabs, that they wouldn't have had if there had never been a plan to try to kill them off.
From my own personal experience, injuries are about 4x deaths. Similar to what was noted in "Cause Unknown" by Ed Dowd. Even if they live, I'm pretty sure their lives have been shortened.
1. I think that the mass death wave is coming, in even more force than it is now. These "injuries" are largely things that are incurable ticking time bombs and will ultimately result in conditions that are incompatible with life. There is a lag between injection and death in some cases, and the vaxx effects are cumulative -- more vaxx's, more damage. This means that we will be seeing the aftermath of this for quite some time. The rodeo is just beginning, IMO.
2. Perhaps the mass "injuries" to put MORE strain on the system is a feature to them, not a bug. "They" know this system is unsustainable, and has been for a long time ... Perhaps the fed sees the mass vaxx injuries as a way to pass the blame. ("Look! The system collapsed because of Big Pharma, not us!")
this certainly appears to be true for myocarditis, which medical fact says comes with a 50% 5-year survival rate or something along those lines, no matter how "mild and transient" it is asserted to be at this time. Some papers have put the myocardial injury rate from the jabs at 100% of vaccinees...
Yes, you are missing it. You're missing that all cause mortality is still abnormally high. But the real biggie is the misclassification of deaths. Not only were many vaccine deaths misclassified as Covid deaths, but many actual Covid deaths occurred only because people had been made vulnerable to Covid by taking a vaccine.
Definitely more are dying. But you’re right, not en masse.
What I’d like to know is, how many extra have to die young - ie how many life years lost- for the books to add up? Is it half not reaching 70? Or 10pct?
What if you have to work to 70 to get your pension and life expectancy is reduced to 75? Does it add up then?
Don’t be thinking these calculations haven’t been done by somebody somewhere.
What do you mean by "from what I can tell"? Your own personal acquaintances, friends, and family members? Maybe you are lucky enough to live in an area that didn't receive any of the most deadly lots of vaccines. Overall, though, from many sources, there is evidence of a marked increase in all-cause mortality.
Go back further. Nixon breaking the gold link to dollar eliminated all credit limits. We spend like a 17 yo kid with a credit card without limit that doesn't yet know it's not free.
You mean like the lawlessness of The Executive Branch and the absolute negligence of The Legislative Branch when it comes to the 50 U.S. Code Chapter 33 - WAR POWERS RESOLUTION?
That has come at an extraordinary cost....and not just fiscally.
Here's our latest attempt to put the nail in the coffin:
The system was never designed to save anything. It was a pay-go system from its inception. The money paid always went directly to recipients. It's true the system often took in more money than it needed to pay to recipients, but that was never invested. What would it have been invested in? Government bonds? Well, those are your IOUs and, like all government bonds, they simply represent money that was spent by one generation that needs to be paid back by another. Democrat politicians call that a 'lock box' and Democrat voters think that's swell, apparently.
"I think the problem likely has been made worse by the plundering of <insert name of every freaking Federal Spending Bill ever... billed>funds, replacing actual money with government IOUs."
and Medicare is terrible! Unless you pay big bucks for a gap policy, you get poor, expensive coverage. If you continue to work or can keep your employer's coverage, you can get better care. For those just on Medicare, you get lots of palliative care, but not much needed care to return you to full use of a body part. For example: have shoulder problems? under 65 can get it fixed. over 65 have to do PT, then maybe you'll be able to get it fixed a couple of years down the road, after you've lost quality use of it & you're body doesn't recover as well. Medicare is closer to what Great Britain & Canada has.
Another example of "kick the can down the road" politicians. Dallas leaders were told for years that the Police & Fire pension fund was going to be insolvent. Numerous mayors & councilmembers kicked that can down the road until it exploded. That was over ten years ago & they're still kicking it down the road. Most cops & firemen that will retire in the next few years, & don't have SS, & will not have a pension, either, thanks to the can being kicked repeatedly for decades. But will the politicians that ignored it suffer repercussions? Absolutely not!
The dole?! Really?! I call BS!! The problem is a 1.2% ROR for the average person and less than ZERO for below average wage earners for the 15.3% we “invest” in the system. Ask yourself why? The answer is both parties decided to tap into it for various reasons as Congress purposely left loopholes. A long term ROR since 1920 gives us 7-9% on equities, 4% on bonds, 3% on real estate although that’s gone up with the plandemic. Imagine those returns and we SS recipients have at least tripled our monthly take and zero taxes on it. Let’s put the blame on the scumbags in Congress in years past, Bush 2, Obama, Trump, Biden and the wealth transfer of C19. Prove me wrong!
Since 2002, the US has added in net 52 million people. The GDP in net has not grown in real terms over this period of time. Any $1 of GDP growth has been more than offset by $1.60 in debt. There is NO WAY that 52 million additional people should have ever been let in. Period.
At the same time, we have offshored millions of jobs and our trade deficit has grown.
And people stupidly wonder why our lower class can't seem to find a "living wage" (whereby they are not dependent on Government assistance) as well as why this country continues to be ghettoized, polarized, and bankrupt...
and don't forget all the people that now get SS & Medicaid as well as every single welfare option available that aren't even retired & aren't even citizens. Thanks Joe. When I was working we had several illegals working (with bogus ID's - hired before me), & they did good work, so we gave them a raise. They all threatened to quit because they lost all the govt freebies they got if we raised their pay. When we had to provide health insurance they went berserk because they didn't want to pay even $5 for what they were getting for free in Medicaid even though they complained all the time about how terrible Medicaid drs were.
Had I been given the option to fund my own "retirement" outside the SS system with the mandated SS deductions (I paid twice, as self-employed), I would not be on "the dole", and I would have a far better retirement than the monthly SS checks.
But since my SS deductions always hit the max for 50 years, you are damn straight I want every dime from SS I can get.
Boomers are not and never have been the problem. Gubmint idiocy and forever wars are the problem.
I'm in a similar situation. I paid plenty of money into SS during the four decades I was working. I'm having a hard time understanding why I'm a despicable greedy boomer for wanting to get that money back now. (I'm 68 and started taking SS benefits last year.)
You're a "despicable greedy boomer" because you didn't take your lumps in 08 when you should have or the tech bubble for that matter. You've squandered the credit that previous generations built up for you in your selfish misguided ideals. The Empire is falling apart, who's watch is coming to an end while it does?
You're making some unwarranted assumptions about my ideals. I didn't take my lumps in '08 because I had already embarked on a savings plan that didn't depend on government aid, real estate, or tech stocks.
I became aware of the coming crash around that time. When I had a friend tell me I should invest in real estate because it would always make money, I knew this couldn't last.
Baby boomers didn't take their lumps from the economic crash that occurred over 20 years ago?? And were not impacted by other economic crashes that occurred during their lifetimes? Individual citizens from the Baby Boom are responsible for reckless spending by Congress that occurred during their lifetime?? But subsequent generations bear no responsibility at all for deficit spending by Congress?? It seems to me that everything happening now is also on YOUR watch. I just hope future generations don't attack you for allowing all this to happen!!
Don’t forget the marxists,those that basically are now (not boomers) calling for a guaranteed income for doing, producing,creating nothing. Lost me onthis one, gato. Been paying through the nose all my life. Now, finally I get to enjoy a few years, comfortable, with failing health. Fuck you.
Every idiot who hasn't demanded true change since 2008, and then poured salt in the wound with their stupidity again in 2020 when they bailed out the corrupt with even larger sums. It isn't hurt beach dog, its toughening up for whats to come. We could have avoided it, but i think it had to be this way now. ;) Good luck in the future!
Yeah, amor fati. Respect. Anyone with a robust belief in divine providence knows that the way this all ends is in a great conflagration. It's all gotta burn. God has so ordained.
I agree, and don't believe for a second the plan if you just put off SS for ten years we will give you more money. First when did the government ever do anything to help us.
Second, today's dollar is worth more then tomorrow's dollar.
Third means testing is on the way.
Fourth, the whole damn thing is going to collapse anyway. Get your money and buy seeds.
5th, they are trying to kill you off before you collect anyway.
I would argue the ironically named “greatest generation” was the problem. It’s entitlement programs that have led us to where we are today, the worst of which is Medicare which dwarves social security in terms of unfunded debt. These people came back from world war 2 and voted themselves benefits that will likely lead to the financial unraveling of the entire country. Boomers were children when the alleged greatest generation started the doomsday clock at the height of their political power.
The first Baby Boomers were born in 1946. Medicare was passed in 1965. The vast majority of the Baby Boomers had not yet reached voting age when Medicare was passed. Many Boomers oppose entitlement programs. I'm a Boomer and was strongly opposed to the creation of the Medicare drug benefit in 2003. SS was created a decade before the first Boomers were born.
So the thinking here is if we limit voting to millennials and gen z that we will get the largesse under control? Those demographics vote for the exact politicians implementing more of this stuff not less. I’m sorry to say you will wind up with all of these programs plus subsidized childcare and college. A welfare state is desirable to younger demographics even if they aren’t the ones receiving it. Until the culture changes any changes you make are Madison’s parchment barriers.
I think the point was that boomers would get off ss and Medicare. The welfare state would cease to exist because they won’t get off welfare and would lose their vote so we could vote in politicians who would get rid of welfare…it’s a genius plan.
I don’t know. Would you give up 50,000 dollars a year as a married couple in exchange for being allowed to participate in a popularity contest every 4 years knowing your vote won’t effect the outcome anyway? More importantly would you give up a fortune in medical benefits via Medicare? I wouldn’t, and doubt there would be many takers.
Ok. Then no voting. Boomers stop voting, younger generations are given option of not participating and welfare state ceases to exist. Oh, and we stop sending money to endless wars.
No more geriatric congress members either. Seems like a win win.
My point was largely that the welfare state is well supported by younger generations even if they aren’t directly benefiting. Under this model you are mostly left with 20 to 40 something’s voting. If you think urban professionals living in or near blue cities are going to eliminate these programs you are engaging in some serious wishful thinking. A majority of them are ideologically wed to the idea.
Legal gimmicks won’t fix the problem. It will require a changing of minds on a broad scale. Hopefully we don’t have to get to the point of Argentina before we are willing to consider a change in direction.
The idea has some superficial ideological appeal to me. There is just no reason to believe it’s going to eliminate the welfare state, and could arguably have the opposite effect.
It’s hard for me to believe that SS/Medicare are the problem of the boomers given the payments we have been putting in for our whole lives. Funny, how we are perceived as a ‘suck’ on the system when we have been taxed at high rates to pay for the expectation of these services with no hope of not paying that tax. You work, you pay FICA, no way to avoid it. And yet …..
We have plenty of money to fund war that never ends even in the face of criminal lying to get us there. We spend billions that are unaudited into regions that supposedly are an existential threat to us yet our government is the main pot stirrer that creates the conflict. The border is wide open and all must be fed and cared for, looking to allow THEM to vote - but let’s take the vote away from the boomer suck. Let’s go after the only program where billions were paid into it never the ones that are truly the suck.
So many other ways to salvage the train wreck this country has become other than targeting SS/Medicare and most of the boomer suck would willingly help. When we are gone - when we go silent - then who will you blame?
I have no shame in my expectation of receiving Medicare and SSI. I paid for it. I was MADE to pay for it. I have watched, powerless, to stop Viet Nam, Iraq I and Ii, Afghanistan and now Ukraine. There is your suck, my friend. The only boomers I am ashamed of are the ones in Washington DC and state governments. And more than the boomers put them there and fuel the vote to keep them there.
You have a point, but everyone who is working can make the same point: I am paying into a system that will not pay me back. This system is failing and it will collapse, and those that suffer will be the furthest removed from the original agreement (that was doomed to fail). Either we cut our losses and get out (sooner rather than later) or a greater catastrophe will fall on generations who will not be prepared to deal with it. It will be unfair and painful but it is also unavoidable.
I have empathy for you in that but to cut off the programs for those in retirement, for those that would have nothing without it - catastrophic. I have done what I could to help myself offset the need but I have no way to deal with medical insurance. It has to be salvaged for that part if nothing else. And I stand by my claim: there is an assload of things that could be cut and reigned in BEFORE this entitlement (and that could be used to relieve YOU of the obligation). That should be explored first.
I am retired. I receive a pension that is not funded by Social Security, and I still have concerns that 99% of the world is sitting atop of an economic house of cards that will fall and that my pension will be sacrificed for the greater good (Along with Social Security and Medicare). I think the suffering we are all fearing is inevitable.
I agree that there are many programs that should be sacrificed to ease the suffering, but then you are talking about a complete overhaul of the government, and the political culture that has given rise to the elitist, rent seeking beast it has become, that will be generations in the making and not soon enough to avoid the havoc this financial catastrophe will unleash on future generations. I HOPE I AM WRONG.
That change is no different from deciding to overhaul who contributes. Any move we make - even to let it fail - will be catastrophic to seniors regardless of their dependence on SSI or Medicare. We have already mortgaged the future generations. And it wasn’t the boomers or SSI or Medicare that caused that. It’s been escalating since America unleashed the Bush’s and Obama’s. Boomers may own Bush but we don’t own the supposed solution of Obama (though I’m not sure we would have been better off with Romney). So the only real choice is an overhaul of the government and the heavy lifting that entails.
I agree with you. The biggest hurdle we face is that most people would rather believe that voting better people into the leviathan, which generally devolves into voting for the lesser of two evils (Spoiler alert: evil wins), is the solution. We got our work cut out for us.
Exactly right - and another thought for the Gato-Pals: do you think if Medicare/SSI taxes were relieved from your paychecks that there wouldn’t be another ‘tax’ to replace it with even less of a chance of payback?
The young generation left able to vote will vote themselves an income-for-all, removing everyone from being able to vote and then we have our true dictatorship
Several books have been written (I wish I had written down their titles and authors) analyzing this. The authors found that, decade after decade, the people living between approximately 1960 and 2000 repeatedly voted for fiscal restraint, small federal government (remember the ‘Reagan Revolution’?), balanced budgets, etc. But after their candidates were elected, the lobbyists got their way with more money for every pet section of the economy. I know I personally have fought against the ‘largess’ all of my decades of life!
who was running and supporting this lobbying system? seems like mostly the boomers. they have and still do wield massively outsized political power. boomers are 53% of the house and 68% of the senate.
No, we were clueless and duped about the lobbying system! We truly thought that our votes mattered, and that we would get the fiscal responsibility that we repeatedly voted for. Then the elected politicians would end up doing the exact opposite of what we wanted - because they were all beholden to the money through the lobbying system!
The solution has to be: eliminate the lobbying system!
And I’m surprised at your tyranny, Gato. You want to be 70 years old someday, still paying taxes but having NO say in your government? You want to be 80 and at the complete mercy of younger people voting you into some forced euthanasia program? No taxation without representation!
I think you blame boomers for a lot that was instigated by the prior generation. Young boomer here. I get so fed up with this classification. There's a tremendous difference from one end of the age range to the other.
Your comment regarding being curious about the difference:
With the younger (non-Boomer) generation, what's the difference? I see no fiscal restraint. Instead, they think money can be printed continuously without any consequences or ramifications.
Most of my generation and my parents’ generation who were sold on the idea of SS honestly believed this was a benefit we were paying for. Also, please remember that we had no choice regarding contributions to the pot and if you were self-employed I can assure you those contributions dug deep. We were led (mis-led to be sure) to believe this was the same as putting money in an investment account to be there for us when we retired. In fact, it seemed an enforced investment to many as many would have preferred investing that money in their own accounts. The government decided that we were too stupid to do that and thus we would be impoverished at retirement. Some truth to that as I consider the meager amounts my grandparents lived off of. Honest, hard-working people in the midst of the Midwest farm communities, they had very little at retirement. They continued to grow much of their own food in order to feed themselves until they were forced into a nursing home. They didn’t survive into their 90’s with the sole intent of making life hard for the children. While the idea of SS, Medicare, etc is certainly a bad idea in retrospect, and one we should gradually move ourselves out of over time, your idea of immediately ending those things are about as useful as the genetic injections. As in a very good way to quickly - and harshly - depopulate the country. Particularly of older folks who you must think are useless eaters and poor folks who are a mixed bag of people who work hard and get nowhere as well as people who enjoy being fed by someone else. Overall, as we run out of money for these things, we will have starving elders and the poor, anyway. Some of us are doing what we can to prepare for that by becoming as independent as we can. Including using the medical system as close to the zero mark as possible since it’s so toxic in any case. You want o end reliance on socialism? Help communities find ways to divorce themselves from reliance on those systems. An 80 yo might be living awhile longer but they can’t get out and go back to work effectively if they are feeble, can’t drive, can’t think straight, etc. Encouraging more natural doctors to help people wean themselves off of big Pharma so that they are healthy as well as alive will also encourage folks to want to contribute to their communities more. And become more independent. Particularly those of us who ARE USED TO WORKING OUR BUTTS OFF ALL OUR LIVES. We are retired. We are working to homestead and do our best to be independent of anyone. We have saved our money and have our retirement plans. We have our calloused hands and achy muscles to show for our hard work. And actually enjoy our efforts and the results of them. How about you? What if no one was paying you for all your interesting words? You ready to grow your own carrots; have your medicine garden installed and know how to use it; manage your home off-grid; shoot and process your meat or raise and butcher it? Do you have your plan in place for paying your property taxes so your land won’t be taken away from you? Got all that in place? If you do, then also realize that once the handouts end, a few hundred thousand very hungry and angry folks are going to be looking at your hard work and will most certainly come your way to take it for themselves. Are you ready for that as well?
I have read this sort of stuff for decades but we don’t seem to be coming up with solutions to help bridge our way out of the system. It’s getting a wee late for that because either we all get sucked into slavery through the new, global financial system or we all starve together when the current system implodes as it surely will. I’d like to see us get creative and come up with something more useful than “take away voting rights if on a handout.” Mass starvation and the chaos and robbery that will follow that will NOT fix the problem.
Gee, I'm sorry, I spent 20 years working minimally outside the home, because I thought it was important to actually *raise* our kids and make a "home"....a real home, a haven from the outside world for my husband and children, where we spent time together and taught our children the values we felt were important. My husband was a mid-income earner, we payed plenty of taxes and lived very frugally, and raised our children, who are now all (and have been) working full time. Then I went to work full-time, now at 61 I've retired, right now am living quite happily and abundantly on about $1500 a month, will start receiving about $1000 a month SS in the next year. But forgive me, I'm just a vulture who's sucking dry the teat of Gen Xers.
Great idea...... except that who gets voted in matters less and less now that every part of our society is permanently in the hands of a university sheep-dipped Woke elite. "Virtue signalling liberals have colonised every single institution of civil society in America. They have been groomed, at the universities, to such pitch-perfect self-righteousness that it would never even occur to them that they might be imposing their ‘pseudo-values’ on a public with little realistic means of democratic resistance." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
So the welfare gravy train will continue whoever gets voted in....until our whole 'democracy' eventually comes crashing down.
Excellent points. As an ashamed member of the Boomer Generation I believe we have been the most destructive generation and responsible for the financial and culture mess we are in. Your proposal is a curious one (coming from someone who would lose the right to vote under it). However, if it were extended to anyone receiving a government benefit (college loan forgiveness anyone) would there even be anyone eligible to vote?
Other than complete collapse I don’t see anyway out of the current financial trajectory.
We are a little more than 100 years into the progressive marxist American experiment, and its failure is obvious to those who can see. Stuck in the no-win of playing a new game, by old rules has hamstrung any hopes of repair or correction.
If we are to continue this gravy train then the premise has to change.
I like your idea of changing who is eligible to vote. I've usually looked to who actually pays federal tax gets to vote federally, state tax gets to vote at the state level, and (documentable, not assumed) sales tax payments qualifies one to vote locally. There must be skin in the game.
This blinded by the light of democratic farce mentality has put us into an obvious death spiral, at least to those who can see.
An additional aspect of "skin in the game" might be to make [full] citizenship contingent on an individual performing some kind of "national service" -- and not necessarily/solely military service. Remember the 1960s/70s VISTA program (Volunteers In Service To America)? Perhaps it could be revived, and made into something of value. What we *earn* is worth more than what we're *given*.
I had leaned towards this model as well (military, environmental, community service, two years minimum, etc), but I have over time moved away from it. If someone does this, voluntarily, great, maybe some sort of credit or perk is earned. But what happens all too often, and especially if compulsory, is since these are generally gov't programs, or worse "public private partnerships", they become indoctrination centers, breeding more social dependents.
Boomer here. The assumption underlying Social Security is that age demographics would continue as the have since the founding. Namely, each generation would be larger and more productive than the last.
Where are your children Gens X and Y? You have sacrificed your future on the altar of reproductive rights. It is you who are reproducing below replacement rate.
I, like many of my despised generation, am well into my "golden years". I still work, am still taxed, and pay more taxes than I receive in benefits.
Reap what you sow (or don't sow, in this case).
actually, it was the boomers whose birth rate collapsed vs prior generations.
pre-depression, it was about 26 kids per 1000. post war baby boom was about the same.
then, in the 60's when the boomers started having kids, it collapsed and broke below replacement level (21).
by 1970 it was down to 15. this is why gen X is so small.
i think you have this wrong way round. it was the boomers that drove us way down under replacement rate, not gen X and Y.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers#/media/File:US_Birth_Rates.svg
also worth noting:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/296974/us-population-share-by-generation/
gen Y and Z are actually bigger than the boomers.
Would it really make a difference if gen X were larger? Wouldn't the result be the same?
I mean don't you think it really goes back to the whole concept of Social Security being a short-term "fix" that turned into a scam, in which it would be natural for anyone paying into to expect their share after paying into it?
These programs are so engrained in our culture that expectations and reality are one in the same. In other words, expectations of the impossible turn into reality. Which becomes undetectable due to the entitlement a person would naturally expect to receive the entitlement itself. The stupid idea of these entitlement programs has become expected; precisely because people have forgotten (and therefore can't see) they were stupid ideas from the beginning.
The scam has become an expectation; not an idea that should be debated for solutions.
"The most dangerous ideas are not those that challenge the status quo. The most dangerous ideas are those so embedded in the status quo, so wrapped in a cloud of inevitability that we forget they are ideas at all."
- Jacob M. Appel,
yes, and the change from "average recipients gets zero years of payouts" to "gets 12 years of payouts" due to increased lifespan would have been too much to carry for any demographic pattern, especially when compounded by COLA adjustments.
the whole system was ponzi from the start and could only end one way.
theoretically, the safety valve was "paygo" where payments out cannot exceed payments in, but there is zero chance that is honored and honestly, it does not matter. it's medicare that's the real killer and that shortfall is multiples of SS.
I'm 87 y/o, still working full time and pay in the max Social Security tax every year, have worked since age 15, and thus paid in for 72 years, of course much more in later higher earning years. Didn't start taking Soc. Sec. benefits till age 70.
Signed up for Medicare age 65, as individual health insurance unobtainable after age 65 in private insurance market. Medicare deducts $587/month from my Soc. Sec. check (income based increase). Social Security was signed in to law the year before I was born. I don't believe there ever was a "trust fund", as Soc. Sec. money is categorized as a tax, not insurance, and is constantly raided for general revenue. Initial seed money for SS came from the government, of course, but I have wondered if SS would be in a lot better shape if it had been treated as "investment", i.e., invested like my IRA, with steady growth over long period of time. Dunno. As things are, I realize something must be done to keep SS viable for the future. I struggle (some) with the guilt over the fact that by still working, I'm "stealing a job from a young person", and that Health Czar under Obama, Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, is widely quoted as stating that in his opinion, useful life is "completed" at age 75. I do wonder how he will feel about that in 9 years when he turns 75. So my other "guilt" is that I'm 12 years past my "use by" date per central planners like Dr. Emanuel. I joke sometimes that one of the reasons I keep working and paying taxes is to "prove" that I'm still "useful" and maybe they won't euthanize me.
I know what must be done to keep SSN viable. Vote for TRUMP #1 and then #2 the confiscation of all the stollen money during the Bush, Bush, Obama and Biden Reign of TERROR on American soil and to our military, money from their private bank accounts, properties, Islands and Overseas scam accounts. 4 trillion dollars missing from the FED Reserve 3 months before Obamas term ended without any explanation. Killary's "MISSING" State Department 500 million, as well as the Haiti millions. Joe’s admin has been robbing us blind with 113BILLION supposedly to Ukraine UNACCOUNTED FOR. Obamas billions in Indonesian bank account, https://www.facebook.com/wreg3/videos/video-judge-joe-brown-on-supporting-trump-vs-obama/1694399750684724/ multimillion mansion in Dubau that was exposed and quickly covered up by Media. The money from the BUDGET voted for over and over with Palosi that builds and maintains the private Islands of Biden, Pedo Jeffrey, Oprah, Bezos, FB Owner, Sir Branson, Previous Twitter Tycoon. WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED over and over and over. GATES FOUNDATION BILLIONS for poisoning the entire population, our food, our animals, our skies, our water. He got his money from GOV GRANTS...YOUR MONEY! Clinton, Bush Soros foundation money...TAKE IT like they took it from us! All those private jets, yacht's bought with our money...Take em! F em!! Their WEALTH must be confiscated and returned to the People like you who worked all their lives and to the people yet to be born who have nothing but bills accumulating. These people are all going BYEBYE very soon to a nice island called CUBA to be executed for TREASON.... After we take back what they stole, we can begin again to audit the books for the FIRST TIME IN HISTORY. With TRUMP as president, we cn begin to pay off the debt, and sell and drill baby drill. Its also been exposed that the minerals discovered under the seabed could erase our entire debt. Those mineral rights are being claimed by the ELITE SCUM as I type this. WE THE PEOPLE Must not let them steal the future from us.
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-mineral-rich-nodules-deep-sea.html
What this article will not tell you is that these nodules are worth hundreds of trillions of dollars and perhaps beyond Trillions of dollars and the FIGHT is on to recover them for the greedy few.
The fact that you struggle over "stealing a job" and that there is some validity to this concern shows that there's something missing from the original post, and that something is the fact that the real risk for the future is human obsolescence, not scarcity and deprivation. Admittedly the accounting has become so tortured and absurd that some sort of catastrophic adjustment seems inevitable, but there's no real material scarcity here.
Being productive is not stealing a job from anyone. Just as the machines introduced during the Industrial Revolution weren’t stealing jobs either. Keep working guilt free.
Above a certain income level you generally pay more into Social Security than you get out. Rather than disenfranchise people based on receiving government benefits it makes more sense to not allow people to vote if they do or did not make sufficient money to fund their own benefits (and those of others). The top few percent of income earners have kept the system running for years (forget the top quintile). I agree the Medicare deficit dwarfs Social Security, but it's an insurance plan funded again (through higher taxes and IRMA penalties) by people who worked hard and saved money so they have high incomes in retirement. I am not seriously suggesting income-based voting, but it makes more sense than disenfranchising the only people who paid for the benefits they and others receive. You note that democracy is itself not self-sustaining, so the real answer is to reduce the amount of "democracy" by restoring the American Republic. The American founders (who knew classical history) understood that democracy was the worst form of government so they founded a Republic that was less likely to self-destruct. Democracy is an aggressive cancer that cannot easily be cured once it is established so (absent deus ex machina) we should expect increasing tyranny.
https://www.freefacts.org/social-security/how-much-money-will-i-pay-into-social-security-and-how-much-will-i-get-out#:~:text=It%27s%20worth%20pointing%20out%20that,than%20you%27ll%20get%20out.
Of course, the founders wanted only property owners to be able to vote - those who had a stake in what the government was to do. And that despite most revenues coming from goods.
agreed, it was destined to fail, but they've papered over the fact the entire idea was grounded in a failure to launch...because the launch pad was merely a house of cards to begin with.
The launch pad never truly existed and this rocket has burned all the cards (short-term "fixes"). The "burn-rate" is faster than any cards they can add. And it was from the beginning.
I agree with you fellows but it sounds to me like the history of SS and its bastardization is the exact definition of a ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff would be envious.
That is exactly what it is.
For sure
There are a lot of problems other than Medicare but Medicare is a big one. Our medical system has continuously push out lifespan without really improving health-span. Why is it not ok to say the quite part out loud? There are too many old people using Medicare to squeeze out the last few years of their lives in very poor health at astronomical costs. I do not believe in euthanasia. But there has to be a happy medium between killing and prolonging life at all costs. My wife and I have had discussions (read arguments) regarding this. She claims you are playing God to remove people from life support. My reply is why aren't you playing God by putting them on life support to begin with? I'm sure I'm going to catch heck from a lot of folks for this.
That's a good argument. Also, though, remember that many old people get "heroic medicine" against their wishes. Because someone in the family overrides everything with "we must do all we can for mom." And the medical system profits from that.
I get the impression you like the covid vaccines?
I agree with you
If medicare is the issue, might it not be more realistic to try to change the insane incentive structure of the medical industry rather that trying to abrogate fundamental rights of the most powerful voting block in existence?
Admittedly it's clearly going to be hard. Good AI has outperformed human diagnosticians for many decades, but doctors still maintain their stranglehold. Somehow we need to get to the point of an AI + auto mechanic view of medicine.
Yes it makes sense to change the incentive structure, but AI is a problem, not the answer. AI generates mindless algorithms that have been used for years to treat all problems virtually identically regardless of nuance which is one reason health is so much worse now. Remember the ventilators and Remdesivir treatments mindlessly mandated during Covid? If you want to kill the maximum number of people then AI and algorithmic medicine is the way to go. In that sense it solves the Medicare problem, but it kills a lot of younger people too. In the US pharmaceutical companies have a stranglehold on Medicine that distorts incentives and sickens the population. They need to be reeled in, their legal immunities abrogated, and drug prices legislatively reduced. Freed of these sociopaths we can hope the medical professional will regain its integrity. As you say, admittedly it will be hard.
AI beats human docs at diagnosis and has for decades. This isn't too surprising since it's a heavily memory/db limited activity. AI has no penetration into medicine as currently practiced and isn't to blame for the lunatic covid response at all. In fact it's a fair guess it would have voted against vents in the first place.
My grandmother, who died at 104 years old, believed she was fully entitled to her social security check. (She was very conservative otherwise.) My husband tried to explain to her the problems the system causes, but nope, as far as she was concerned, she had paid for it!
As much as it pisses me off to see my money each pay period stolen for social security, I am making my plans such that I never have to be on that dole when I get to 65. (Not that there will be any left anyway.) Entitlements, even ones that I contributed to, are a leash anyway that give the government power over me.
good luck with that. the govt limits how much you can put away tax free, then does everything to destroy what you have saved - 0.1% interest on savings accounts, 2% for CD's, bonds 4%, etc etc etc. We tried to do the same & our investments & savings were doing good under Trump. Then Biden came in & every statement shows loss after loss after loss. We had plenty of money to live comfortably & travel a little, but post Trump, it's worrisome as property taxes have gone up, groceries, insurance, gas, etc. We have no physical earning power as we can't do the jobs we once did, so we have to rely on investments now & at our age, can't put anything into the high risk, high return investments because we don't have time to ride them out. But politicians don't have that problem, they don't live under the rules they impose on others - they can decree an increase in their pay, their benefits, etc. They don't live in the real world, they live in the world of payoffs & graft.
I'm aware it's an uphill battle, but gosh darn it, I am going to keep trying.
Yeah, that's my point; once these entitlements are put into motion it is then an expectation regardless of long-term consequence.
That's just a natural outcome of those who have been "suckered" into a ponzi scheme.
Can't blame your mother imo.
I’m not sure “suckered” is the right word. We were forced into it. I would have been happy to take my (and my employer’s) SS “contributions” and invest them myself. I was not given that choice.
Yeah. You said it better.
Yup. I had a tiny business and I paid double. I didn’t have a choice. I worked until my full and I’m taking it. I didn’t create this system and I worked hard.
Sorry Kay. Didn't mean to give the impression you were a sucker. I put it in quotes because we are all victims of your assertion...including myself.
I apologize for the misunderstanding.
Peace
Edit: Kay not Kate...sorry again...arggh
Hubby had said this for decades! They have stolen from us all with the SS tax scheme.
Of course the actual money we had invested on our own was decimated by the financial ruin of 2008. And now the deficit/inflation train that never stops rolling is picking up steam. The wreck, (when it inevitably comes) is going to be catastrophic. I pray constantly for God’s grace to be with us all for when the party really gets started.
Don’t forget that Congress has been robbing SS for decades, and now they’re giving a massive portion to illegals.
Dontcha love paying to be invaded?!...:)
Once government becomes the main source of anything, it becomes exponentially more expensive and ultimately unaffordable and unsustainable.
Government became main source of student loan money: college expenses rise WELL beyond inflation.
Government became main provider of medical insurance: healthcare and health insurance rates rise beyond inflation rates.
Same for social security, compounded by lower birth rates and extended life rates.
NAILED IT!
The revolution will be complete when we have bread lines that bring us together...
No boomer voted for the Social Security Act, which was signed into law in 1935. The oldest boomers are now 77. Say they got their first part-time, recorded income job at 16 and retired at 65. That's almost 50 years of forced payments into Social Security. What a nest egg they would have accumulated if they could have safely invested that money themselves. It's worse than a ponzi scheme. No one is forced to put their money in one of those.
Exactly!
None of the “leaders” who rob the public at every turn every worry about having to participate in their schemes. They live outside the rules.
Very good point. We're all sort of victims. Nothing like the government giving you a one option choice
Yes, and nothing like the government to encourage the kind of divide and conquer strategy that sets the generations against each other, instead of looking at the source of the problem.
Agree Momo.
I’m an Aussie Gen X. I have 3 kids receive no benefits and am in the top tax bracket. I pay more into the system then over 90% of the population. I don’t want to receive any SS or benefits. Taxation is theft pure and simple. I refuse to legitimise their system by filling out forms and gratefully receiving my stipend.
I hear ya. Good on you!
I don't have a choice; as a biz owner I have had to pay millions in FICA over 25 years.
Part of the reason I'm a libertarian.
Coincided with women flooding the workforce. They couldn’t bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan AND care for a lot of children at the same time.
That was govt's plan - get mom out of the house, so govt can be in charge of raising them. And govt has done a great job of raising clones of themselves.
You’re SO right!
This. My boomer parents lived in an average house in an average suburb with an average mortgage (4xavg wage) and had 3 kids, mom was stay at home until we were self reliant enough. We have a sufficient and average upbringing. An X or Y in the same averages......they'd be lucky to be servicing an average mortgage (8x avg wage) both slogging their guts out at work. The system made X, Y and Z debt slaves imho, they're not focused on populating, just self-serving survival.
The younger woman in my family know the only “right” they earned by being co-opted into the workforce willy-nilly was the right to be exhausted at all times.
It was always just a way to get more taxes out of people and feed the beast system.
The birth control pill ushered in free love (and fewer children)
Study just released said it "changes" the personality of the people who use all the time, it also changes their preference in partners, who coulda knowed?
It makes sense that a woman who controls her own fertility might choose a man for other qualities than breadwinning ability and eagerness to have kids, or even delay/forego marriage, since its main purpose is childrearing anyhow.
But becoming a parent definitely causes personality changes. Folks find themselves turning into their own parents, often to their shock and horror.
I'm glad I turned into my parents. They were awesome - but I didn't realize it until after I left home & had to fend for myself. Kids these don't have to do that - too many safety nets for them (insurance til 26, school loans paid, living in parents basements, etc) but it's not really their fault, it's the politicians that can't be bothered to do what's right, only what keeps them in office.
Do you have a reference for that? It sounds interesting.
I read way too much on the internet and couldn't find the original article i saw a few days ago. This is the best i could do on the fly:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intimately-connected/201901/do-contraceptive-pills-affect-attraction
And a more recent one:
https://www.healthline.com/health/your-brain-on-birth-control#The-bottom-line
You filed it in the wrong place gato. I'm 71, born in 52. Early boomer. My children are all millenials. GenX are not all boomers kids. Boomers were 1946 to 64. GenX are 1965 to 1980. Boomers born in 1955 were just starting families at 21 yrs old in 1976. 11 years after the first GenX babies. See your second reference. X-Axis for reference.
boomers are from 1946-64 so the early boomers were having kids around 1966-67, right at the leading edge of gen X. you're more mid pack for a boomer than early.
basically all my peers' parents are boomers and i'm center gen X.
Remember when Bush the mentally handicapped wanted to put SS into the stock market right before it crashed? That woulda been quite the sight.
up, yeah. the SPX was about 1400. it's currently 4300, so up 207% since then.
meanwhile, the alleged SS trust fund (an imaginary accounting entity) earns negative nominal returns.
you sure you've got your math right?
Come on El Gato, this is one area your commentary is completely lacking. Why do you hate socialism for society, but love it for the markets?
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/bfm10DB.jpg?itok=PA6a1yHk
how is that chart incorrect?
What do you make of this?
https://ponziworld.blogspot.com/2006/12/it-was-good-for-some-while-it-lasted.html
Like a modern day nostradomus ;)
Why is it up Gato? Or do you support QE and 0% interest rates for the rich? Libertarian values until it comes to the asset market?
And lets not forget about 401ks, which i'm not allowed to take in my paycheck and do with as i please. They defaulted on pensions, what makes you think they won't default on those also? Or perhaps they'll do what Nancy P wanted to in 2008 and roll them into SS. No Ideology is 100% correct, ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwKjGbz60k&feature=youtu.be
But you know, he does paintings now and hugs Michelle Obama so all is forgiven. Why are we still in Iraq again? Still searching for those weapons of mass destruction i guess.
Lolol...genuine lol
Dear BigE,
Are you really going to try and play the Generational card? Fine, if the boomers would have taken their lumps in 08 for the fake economy they created and let asset prices fall to a sustainable level, had not indoctrinated the females with feminism and all the other stupid hippie shit, maybe the generation you birth and shackled would have had more kids. Nothing grows forever except cancer, until it kills you. So you know, SS was supposed to have a growing population is a stupid assertion or a ponzi scheme.
As a boomer, I lost nearly all I had invested & saved in 2008. We didn't create a fake economy - politicians did.
The larger "economy" is heavily influenced by politics. Politicians arguably created both the boom and the bust.
"Saving" value can't really be done except against one's society. That can be family, which may die or not want to take care of us; or it can be personal possessions, which can be lost or stolen from us; or it can be bank money, which can be devalued or disappear if the bank goes bust; or it can be a tax-based pension from the government, which can evaporate if the government is overthrown or the politicians find they have other priorities.
The tragedy of life is that we become old and feeble, and can't scrounge for ourselves so well any more. When that happens, we either die, or we become dependent on our society, one way or another.
You didn't have questions after the tech crash? Or perhaps you weren't paying attention? When did you start to notice something was wrong?
People have been warning you for years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Stop blaming someone else, do you vote? Then you endorse the system
El gato laid down the first card. I'm just playing my hand.
understood, and sometimes the best play is to fold
I’m gen x but born of parents that were the silent generation. My 6 siblings are all boomers. Same with my husband. He’s gen x but parents were the silent generation. We both are different than are siblings and don’t quite fit in,
How about the full congress is replaced with every new election so they can use their time there to do the right things, instead of doing what they have to do to be re-elected?
Wasn’t congress supposed to have real jobs and not be lifetime politicians in one way or another?
When you kill off 63,000,000 people in support of your hedonistic lifestyle, what do you expect?
Not simply boomers. LEFTIST boomers. Feminist boomers. "Environmentalist" boomers. And lets not forget our elected so-called representatives who have known this was coming for at least 3 decades and done zip, zero, nada to fix it. And while Y and Z whine and complain, they are too brainwashed, indoctrinated, and entitled to lift a finger to save themselves and the country from the New Dark Age we are rushing headlong into. WWII was winding down when I was born, so I likely won't be here to see what abundance, greed, apathy, and epidemic mental illness can do to a once great nation and its once great people...
Yes and no. It was the agricultural pharmaco industrial complex that tanked the population rates, your "green revolution" bill arrived. So there's absolutely no connection to "boomers or genX'ers", except that the boomers h happened to be the generation in the hot seat when it started 🤔🤦♀️🤦♀️
This occurred in every westernized country globally.
You wanted to know their solution for the coming fiscal collapse?
They already implemented in 2020.
The current 20-35yrs, and 36-45yrs are dying/disabled in rates at 9sigma levels (It's freaking the insurance underwriters out so much, they a are discussing the collapse of the industry!).
Which is good (🤦♀️) because governments don't have any money left for SS after 2027 anyway. There's no money in the kitty😐🤔😉🤷♀️
True, that boomers enshrined abortion as a part of “health care”, which is now collapsing as expected. But eliminating boomers from voting by tying it to medicare, and SS would likely produce more leftward election results for a good long while, even if elections become genuine.
Really, it’s time to adapt to the inevitability of collapse and start building anew. Who is supporting web3, for just 1 example?
You're ignoring his real point though, "you started it ner ner" doesn't really address the reality that a big chunk of the problem is as he says, WE (stop calling us "them") are having fewer and fewer children.
Today's average new "family" is a single mother with a single kid, with an awful lot of the younger peeps not marrying at all. There are some good reasons for that; if you're a man living in a Western country today then getting married and having kids is like committing suicide in a clown suit.
I'm 64. I did not choose to pay into ss.
But you are saying I should lose my right to vote?
Ok, gimme my stolen money back, with interest.
Problem solved
give me back mine too and you have a deal.
Yep, let’s play into the divide and conquer narrative. It’s always been so helpful in the past, gato. We are all getting screwed over, but at a minimum, promises ought to be kept.
I remember my outrage at a gas station in my beater car and making way less than median income while paying 15% self employment SS taxes ($4,500 on $30,000 income back in the day) and the old retired guy at the next pump was filling up his Cadillac.
It’s awful, but we are all in this mess together. I can’t even count the number of ways SS is effed up, but let’s retroactively appropriate the politicians bank accounts instead of getting into an intergenerational fight.
I’d settle for a zero interest payback.
Yup. And then buy gold and ammo...and maybe an escape boat.
This is the catch. I'd prefer that We the Little People were, dare I say, permitted to make our own choices as to whether or even if we plan for our own retirement.
Some people might choose to work.
Only if you receive SS payments.
The money you paid it was stolen in the sense that all taxes/transfers are theft. It was taken from you, and given to a retiree. It wasn't saved or invested or put in a lock box for later. It's gone.
originally, SS was only to pay for utilities - people didn't have high property taxes - they owned their houses outright & only needed help with utilities. They had gardens, fished, you went in with another couple & bought half a cow/pig from the butcher. But that's been scrubbed from history.
And when I entered the work force, they lied about that.
I think we can blame it on both generations. I think Sowell said it perfectly:
"One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again."
We just can't stop flirting with socialism. The most insidious form; "silent" socialism where everyone accepts that the burden in the future is acceptable to be passed to the subsequent generations.
I, like many in my generation, would never vote to participate in a ponzi scheme.
Four children. I have always worked. I have always paid tax. And I will likely never receive "benefits". How about you just let me stop paying in after 30+ years of it and I'll agree to let you keep what you've already stolen *and* fund my own retirement?
What generation was it that started the bs feminist movement, again? My miserable father and stepmother say hi.
We boomers did not KNOW that it was a Ponzi scheme! We were repeatedly assured that it was all a fiscally sound ‘saving for retirement’ program, paying for itself. Little by little, the details of Social Security changed into it morphed into a Ponzi scheme, just like the rest of government funding!
From a boomer to a boomer - you chose not to know. The problems el gato outlined have been known for 30+ years. No action because social security is the third rail of politics.
It’s true that the problems with SS have been known for decades. But I started working nearly 60 years ago. I didn’t “choose” not to know.
Castigating people you don’t know who were lied to during a time when we didn’t know our government lied to us isn’t productive.
Wow, you're mad at me for castigating you but not at el gato, who called us locusts! And note I said us. I am 74, my husband 75. I believe el gato has a point, in that every voter receives largesse from the Feds for their vote. But I am disappointed by the blame game, blame the boomers for everything. My entire voting life, I have voted for candidates who claimed to want to control the size and cost of government. With the exception of the Gingrich years (Newt was my congressman) I failed, in that campaign promises were not kept, or, alternatively my candidate lost. Collective guilt doesn't wash. I pay income taxes on my SS (85% of total benefits received are taxed), for what it's worth. I would vote for major SS reform, and Medicare reform; el gato's proposal would prohibit that vote. And he doesn't address the lion in the room; the poorest SS beneficiaries. Our benevolent government would just create a welfare program to replace the lost benefits
I’m not angry. I just think that blanket condemnations aren’t helpful. The elders, you and I, among them, have been trapped by all the lies. I see that as sad and unfortunate, since most people never imagined the future burden on their children and grandchildren.
And I have no idea how to solve this hideous problem.
I didn’t ‘choose’ - I was fooled. When you’re young, you tend to believe financial ‘experts’ who have all the graphs and charts and data to convince you. If I knew then, like I know now, how corrupt the entire system is!
And it’s not like we ever had a ‘choice’ about SS. We never got to vote on it or choose to opt out. It’s the Big Government legacy of FRD’s New Deal back in the 1930s.
Thank you for taking responsibility, something very lacking in this country. Wonder who taught their kids that..........
Not really aware of any ponzi schemes that were ever truthfully advertised as such to lure "investors". Caveat emptor.
The difference is, this lie, and the even worse (perhaps the single worst economic/social lie in the history of the US) the Great Society lie of LBJ and Co. was forced on the populace. No one had a choice...sort of like covid spikeshots/antisocial distancing/masking/whatever except even less avoidable.
Almost all problems can be put squarely at the feet of the Federal Government.
The Founders had it better -- the only people who could vote were landowners -- the equivalent, for practical purposes, of wage earners today. The original structure of the country was set up essentially as EGM has outlined. The erosion to "if you breath [or even if you don't in Chicago and other blue cities] you should be able to determine how others' money is spent" is something the Founders would have found utterly abhorrent...that is why the Constitution was not structured that way. Universal suffrage is a pox on effective governance...the 75% who do not contribute are always happy to vote for the other guys to give them more. This is not hard to understand.
The question remains...how do we fix this?
Not going to get much argument here.
How do we fix it? Tytler.
If the government said it, believe the opposite. I was not around at that time, but to me (as a mid Gen X) I have never believed the government about anything. Our founders were clear on the nature of government a couple of hundred years before I was born.
Democrats have always lied about SS, implying there was a lock box or some other stupid metaphor. There was never any lockbox. It didn't morph. It was a Ponzi scheme from its inception.
Yes, you’re right - it was a Ponzi scheme from the start. But we were TOLD otherwise! I remember reading one financial -advice column after another, throughout the 80s, 90s, and so on, assuring everyone that SS was fully funded, don’t worry, you retirement funds will always be there, blah, blah, blah. It’s just like every other aspect of government funding - we are trillions of dollars in debt, yet the politicians and central bankers keep telling us, ‘no problems here, the government is on sound financial ground’. Bull potatoes!
Yes, it was all lies. ALL lies.
I've often thought that if people understood the depth of the dishonesty involved with Social Security, there would be a legitimate revolution.
The simplest explanations I've received as actuary for the last 30 years as to why Social Security would never go bankrupt
(a) The government can reduce benefits - increase full retirement age, increase inflation more than benefits
(b) The government can increase taxes to cover increased payments. You'll receive your benefits, you'll just have to give them back to the government in taxes.
SS does have great benefit to the government, since the "Trust Fund" is invested in government obligations, i.e. the government spends the money now, and pays it back later (see above)
Also, as far as I can tell the SS taxes they collect are included in gross income, so we're paying taxes on money we don't receive.
I'm a late boomer, people have been calling SS a ponzi scheme for at least 30 years that I can remember
The problem is that so many of you not only ignored those of us who were telling you it was a pyramid scheme, but cheered on the polticians who vilified us. "They want to push Granny off a cliff, etc, etc." They called us names, retailed every stupid lie, pretended that rain fell up and the sky was green, all to ensure their share of the funny-money before the music stopped.
The music has stopped. And you burnt all the chairs. Maybe it is far past time that the people who are easily fooled stop making decisions for the rest of us.
I know boomers and pre-boomers who recognized the ponzi scheme. Even if the money had not been stolen for other uses, the increasing lifespan was a wrecking ball. Emptying the fund for other government spending, and collapsing the system with illegal immigrants was done purposely. Now the plan is to shrink the lifespan, and they've managed to cut some years off rather suddenly. We were never meant to retire for 30 years.
Still I'd like to get some of what is and has been forcibly taken from me against my will. Probably won't happen.
At least I have some useful information give or sell, depending on your preference. :-D
What do you do when there is generational poverty? Bad education and bad parenting? I am 64 and the changes in my lifetime where money is involved is nothing short of seismic. There were pensions, healthcare that was affordable, a sense of pride having a job, community, communities structure around heritages, little Italy, little Chinatown or religious affiliation. You knew your neighbors, and families grew up in neighborhoods. Everyone knew bad times, heartbreak and make do.
Once money was made the centerpiece of everything we all changed because we had to, we on some basic level knew our survival instincts would kick in and they did. Our government has a lot to answer for, and the people in it are in an alternate reality. There are so many deals, corruption, favors, underhanded and undermining forces in play right now.
I honestly don’t know how I did it. I bought a house in a not great neighborhood. I drove a beat up car, went to school at night, and was making under 30k a year. I was given basic advice put money away in your 401k when working in banking 1980s. I also knew not to marry or have kids. I married when I turned 35. It was love, right time, and maybe just pure luck. What others take for granted, nuclear family, income coming in, knowledge of how money works, basic life skills, checking account balances, hard work, playing to your strengths and how to deal with downturns in your life are simply not taught, whether it be school or home.
Hubby and I actively talk about what will happen to us if ss becomes needs bases. Lots of people could care less about voting if they get a check, public housing, food stamps, are told what to do, when and where.
As I get older the choices I make are fraught with some pretty bad consequences either way. Ultimately I won’t have a say in how my life will progress. There will be graphs, diagrams, essays, public opinions on how I should live. God help us all. I am simply one of those everyday people.
Our children were sacrificed to pay for the benefits handed out by the government over the period of 1933-present day. Dependency ratio is everything, and it goes into a death spiral the moment the government starts handing out entitlements- suddenly working age people are not only working to sustain themselves and their children, but to sustain complete strangers on the government tit.
That chart says otherwise: it is the boomers that have failed to have sufficient children.
We were TOLD to have fewer children! Dr. Paul Erlicch’s “The Population Bomb” was the ‘we’re all going to die from climate change’ issue of the 60s and 70s. “Too many people on the planet -stop procreating!”
Moral of the story: don’t fall for whatever the ‘doomsday’ advice du jour tells you!
Choosing or failing to have enough kids? Oh please!
That's exactly what the skimmers running the country want. Did you miss the bioweapons genocidal attack on population and reproductivity the last 3 yrs?
I'm not quietly taking the blame for trying to get my vastly deflated money back. I'm not the entity that didn't do what the law demanded. US "leadership" fooked up, not me.
This is not a boomer cause. This is a failure of govt leadership.
You’re the one asking where my children are. Like I selfishly failed to spawn enough to fund your retirement.
But there are fewer of me (GenX) than you boomers, so look in the mirror I say, before blaming others.
I'm a boomer that had two children that gave me 13 grandchildren & 3 great grandchildren, all gainfully employed except the greats. I think I created my own "retirement" group. ;)
PS: I would have had more kids, but I couldn't....
The money you paid into Social Security is not 'your money', any more than the money you were taxed to pay for bombs or EBT cards is still 'your money'.
The fundamental problem with Social Security is that every generation has believed what you believed, but that type of system cannot go on forever.
The crime was that voters weren't wise enough to this when it could have been stopped.
and your employer matched what you yourself put into SS, which you lost as higher wages & benefits. Was it all a plot to keep us servile?
This is another great point people often get hoodwinked by.
If people are even aware their employer pays half of their Social Security contributions, they probably think they're sticking it to The Man.
In reality, our payroll taxes are twice as much as our paychecks show. The government just counts on most people being too stupid or apathetic to realize that.
401ks aren't any different.
"failed to have sufficient children."
In order that they... pay in Soc Sec for them when they're old? Is _that_ the best motivation we can think of?
Feels a little self serving.
Also [hat-tip to Prince Harry] for "spare parts".
I'm in the same boat; at 76 I am fortunate to be healthy and still working. I do not use Medicare unless an absolute crisis occurs and I must. (as in I treat myself with alternative herbs, etc.) I see others in my same age group who are on the medical merry-go-round. They have their constant wellness check-ups, are on prescription drugs and have surgery after surgery and medical event after medical event!
The medical system today is a large part of the problem, the government is the other part. Instead of people taking care of themselves, they depend on the government and all the rules the government imposes on them and on the medical practitioners create a drain on the finances and it doesn't cure the problem or help the people. It DOES, however, create billions of dollars for the drug companies.
It's a sick system!
Ok boomer
If Gen X is a small generation, it cannot be Gen X at fault.
Your first paragraph pretty much describes a Ponzi scheme.
If only we could introduce an experimental gene therapy that reduced the life expectancies of Americans in general & Boomers in particular. It'd be hard to get them to take this jab, so we'd probably have to scare them - tell them it's the only way to stop a deadly disease that otherwise would have killed them. And then, of course, people would get wise to it because other people started dying...Well, then we'd better control the media, make it impossible to get that truth out until it's too late. If only such a thing were possible. Unfortunately, it's not because the CDC and FDA are too concerned about public health to allow such a dangerous jab to become widespread. Thank God our government is only looking out for us & would never act upon its financial incentives to kill us.
Don't forget Medicaid recipients. You would have to convince families that their loved ones who are physically or intellectually or developmentally disabled that they were more at risk than the general population from the virus, so they would need first priority and extra doses.
Or be like Canada & advertise the “peace” that comes with euthanasia.
I’m not seeing the mass death that would be needed. Am I missing it? (Genuinely asking as I believe this was a major reason the vaccine was manufactured. But so far all the people I know who took the jab are just utilizing MORE health services. Especially the boomers on Medicare. They aren’t dying from what I can tell.)
yeah, they have all kinds of turbo cancers, immune system issues, heart problems, blood clots, etc, thanks to those jabs, that they wouldn't have had if there had never been a plan to try to kill them off.
Gotta feed the beast known as pharma.
Exactly. I know so many with immune issues, strokes, heart attacks, but no deaths.
From my own personal experience, injuries are about 4x deaths. Similar to what was noted in "Cause Unknown" by Ed Dowd. Even if they live, I'm pretty sure their lives have been shortened.
1. I think that the mass death wave is coming, in even more force than it is now. These "injuries" are largely things that are incurable ticking time bombs and will ultimately result in conditions that are incompatible with life. There is a lag between injection and death in some cases, and the vaxx effects are cumulative -- more vaxx's, more damage. This means that we will be seeing the aftermath of this for quite some time. The rodeo is just beginning, IMO.
2. Perhaps the mass "injuries" to put MORE strain on the system is a feature to them, not a bug. "They" know this system is unsustainable, and has been for a long time ... Perhaps the fed sees the mass vaxx injuries as a way to pass the blame. ("Look! The system collapsed because of Big Pharma, not us!")
this certainly appears to be true for myocarditis, which medical fact says comes with a 50% 5-year survival rate or something along those lines, no matter how "mild and transient" it is asserted to be at this time. Some papers have put the myocardial injury rate from the jabs at 100% of vaccinees...
This all makes so much sense. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Yes, you are missing it. You're missing that all cause mortality is still abnormally high. But the real biggie is the misclassification of deaths. Not only were many vaccine deaths misclassified as Covid deaths, but many actual Covid deaths occurred only because people had been made vulnerable to Covid by taking a vaccine.
The mass deaths are here - just read your daily obituaries and check for died suddenly or unexpectedly - they appear almost every day.
Definitely more are dying. But you’re right, not en masse.
What I’d like to know is, how many extra have to die young - ie how many life years lost- for the books to add up? Is it half not reaching 70? Or 10pct?
What if you have to work to 70 to get your pension and life expectancy is reduced to 75? Does it add up then?
Don’t be thinking these calculations haven’t been done by somebody somewhere.
You might be failing to account for incompetency here, probably in fine-tuning the death rate vs being too damn obvious equation?
What do you mean by "from what I can tell"? Your own personal acquaintances, friends, and family members? Maybe you are lucky enough to live in an area that didn't receive any of the most deadly lots of vaccines. Overall, though, from many sources, there is evidence of a marked increase in all-cause mortality.
Well said !
LOL
I think the problem likely has been made worse by the plundering of Social Security funds, replacing actual money with government IOUs.
Medicare is wildly expensive because the US “healthcare” (a.k.a. illness prolongation) industry is ludicrously expensive and corrupt.
It always was foolish to let the federal government exceed its enumerated powers. These programs remind us why.
Go back further. Nixon breaking the gold link to dollar eliminated all credit limits. We spend like a 17 yo kid with a credit card without limit that doesn't yet know it's not free.
Exactly. It was supposed to be temporary....
Bam
You mean like the lawlessness of The Executive Branch and the absolute negligence of The Legislative Branch when it comes to the 50 U.S. Code Chapter 33 - WAR POWERS RESOLUTION?
That has come at an extraordinary cost....and not just fiscally.
Here's our latest attempt to put the nail in the coffin:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-admin-drafts-100-billion-ukraine-israel-foreign-aid-package
The system was never designed to save anything. It was a pay-go system from its inception. The money paid always went directly to recipients. It's true the system often took in more money than it needed to pay to recipients, but that was never invested. What would it have been invested in? Government bonds? Well, those are your IOUs and, like all government bonds, they simply represent money that was spent by one generation that needs to be paid back by another. Democrat politicians call that a 'lock box' and Democrat voters think that's swell, apparently.
Bingo
"I think the problem likely has been made worse by the plundering of <insert name of every freaking Federal Spending Bill ever... billed>funds, replacing actual money with government IOUs."
FIFY
and Medicare is terrible! Unless you pay big bucks for a gap policy, you get poor, expensive coverage. If you continue to work or can keep your employer's coverage, you can get better care. For those just on Medicare, you get lots of palliative care, but not much needed care to return you to full use of a body part. For example: have shoulder problems? under 65 can get it fixed. over 65 have to do PT, then maybe you'll be able to get it fixed a couple of years down the road, after you've lost quality use of it & you're body doesn't recover as well. Medicare is closer to what Great Britain & Canada has.
You're on fire today!
Spot on.
https://moneyinc.com/heres-how-much-money-has-congress-taken-from-social-security/
Another example of "kick the can down the road" politicians. Dallas leaders were told for years that the Police & Fire pension fund was going to be insolvent. Numerous mayors & councilmembers kicked that can down the road until it exploded. That was over ten years ago & they're still kicking it down the road. Most cops & firemen that will retire in the next few years, & don't have SS, & will not have a pension, either, thanks to the can being kicked repeatedly for decades. But will the politicians that ignored it suffer repercussions? Absolutely not!
The dole?! Really?! I call BS!! The problem is a 1.2% ROR for the average person and less than ZERO for below average wage earners for the 15.3% we “invest” in the system. Ask yourself why? The answer is both parties decided to tap into it for various reasons as Congress purposely left loopholes. A long term ROR since 1920 gives us 7-9% on equities, 4% on bonds, 3% on real estate although that’s gone up with the plandemic. Imagine those returns and we SS recipients have at least tripled our monthly take and zero taxes on it. Let’s put the blame on the scumbags in Congress in years past, Bush 2, Obama, Trump, Biden and the wealth transfer of C19. Prove me wrong!
Yup. There's that.
Which happened with this:
Since 2002, the US has added in net 52 million people. The GDP in net has not grown in real terms over this period of time. Any $1 of GDP growth has been more than offset by $1.60 in debt. There is NO WAY that 52 million additional people should have ever been let in. Period.
At the same time, we have offshored millions of jobs and our trade deficit has grown.
And people stupidly wonder why our lower class can't seem to find a "living wage" (whereby they are not dependent on Government assistance) as well as why this country continues to be ghettoized, polarized, and bankrupt...
Remind me again who created the laws that made offshore job migration the path to riches?
The people paying on time for 3+ decades never getting even a deflated dime are not the fooking problem.
Not aimed at you, Ryan. I'm agreeing with you and piling on.
I know. I thought it was funny
and don't forget all the people that now get SS & Medicaid as well as every single welfare option available that aren't even retired & aren't even citizens. Thanks Joe. When I was working we had several illegals working (with bogus ID's - hired before me), & they did good work, so we gave them a raise. They all threatened to quit because they lost all the govt freebies they got if we raised their pay. When we had to provide health insurance they went berserk because they didn't want to pay even $5 for what they were getting for free in Medicaid even though they complained all the time about how terrible Medicaid drs were.
Had I been given the option to fund my own "retirement" outside the SS system with the mandated SS deductions (I paid twice, as self-employed), I would not be on "the dole", and I would have a far better retirement than the monthly SS checks.
But since my SS deductions always hit the max for 50 years, you are damn straight I want every dime from SS I can get.
Boomers are not and never have been the problem. Gubmint idiocy and forever wars are the problem.
I'm in a similar situation. I paid plenty of money into SS during the four decades I was working. I'm having a hard time understanding why I'm a despicable greedy boomer for wanting to get that money back now. (I'm 68 and started taking SS benefits last year.)
You're a "despicable greedy boomer" because you didn't take your lumps in 08 when you should have or the tech bubble for that matter. You've squandered the credit that previous generations built up for you in your selfish misguided ideals. The Empire is falling apart, who's watch is coming to an end while it does?
You're making some unwarranted assumptions about my ideals. I didn't take my lumps in '08 because I had already embarked on a savings plan that didn't depend on government aid, real estate, or tech stocks.
Read this Mr. Alexander it was posted in 2006:
https://ponziworld.blogspot.com/2006/12/it-was-good-for-some-while-it-lasted.html
Were you aware of that at the time? When did you first understand that something was wrong?
I became aware of the coming crash around that time. When I had a friend tell me I should invest in real estate because it would always make money, I knew this couldn't last.
And you don't do that about other generations? Its why its stupid to play the generation game. Divide et impara
Again, you're making unwarranted assumptions about my thoughts and actions.
Baby boomers didn't take their lumps from the economic crash that occurred over 20 years ago?? And were not impacted by other economic crashes that occurred during their lifetimes? Individual citizens from the Baby Boom are responsible for reckless spending by Congress that occurred during their lifetime?? But subsequent generations bear no responsibility at all for deficit spending by Congress?? It seems to me that everything happening now is also on YOUR watch. I just hope future generations don't attack you for allowing all this to happen!!
Don’t forget the marxists,those that basically are now (not boomers) calling for a guaranteed income for doing, producing,creating nothing. Lost me onthis one, gato. Been paying through the nose all my life. Now, finally I get to enjoy a few years, comfortable, with failing health. Fuck you.
Who raised those jackasses?
Who hurt you?
Every idiot who hasn't demanded true change since 2008, and then poured salt in the wound with their stupidity again in 2020 when they bailed out the corrupt with even larger sums. It isn't hurt beach dog, its toughening up for whats to come. We could have avoided it, but i think it had to be this way now. ;) Good luck in the future!
Yeah, amor fati. Respect. Anyone with a robust belief in divine providence knows that the way this all ends is in a great conflagration. It's all gotta burn. God has so ordained.
I agree, and don't believe for a second the plan if you just put off SS for ten years we will give you more money. First when did the government ever do anything to help us.
Second, today's dollar is worth more then tomorrow's dollar.
Third means testing is on the way.
Fourth, the whole damn thing is going to collapse anyway. Get your money and buy seeds.
5th, they are trying to kill you off before you collect anyway.
I would argue the ironically named “greatest generation” was the problem. It’s entitlement programs that have led us to where we are today, the worst of which is Medicare which dwarves social security in terms of unfunded debt. These people came back from world war 2 and voted themselves benefits that will likely lead to the financial unraveling of the entire country. Boomers were children when the alleged greatest generation started the doomsday clock at the height of their political power.
This is silly. Boomers CREATED the government that gave us this mess.
The first Baby Boomers were born in 1946. Medicare was passed in 1965. The vast majority of the Baby Boomers had not yet reached voting age when Medicare was passed. Many Boomers oppose entitlement programs. I'm a Boomer and was strongly opposed to the creation of the Medicare drug benefit in 2003. SS was created a decade before the first Boomers were born.
Boomers were around when Roosevelt gave the republic socialism-lite, and the charter for voters to vote for a ration of Free Cheese?
Actually, the Baby Boom didn't even start until after Roosevelt was dead.
So the thinking here is if we limit voting to millennials and gen z that we will get the largesse under control? Those demographics vote for the exact politicians implementing more of this stuff not less. I’m sorry to say you will wind up with all of these programs plus subsidized childcare and college. A welfare state is desirable to younger demographics even if they aren’t the ones receiving it. Until the culture changes any changes you make are Madison’s parchment barriers.
I think the point was that boomers would get off ss and Medicare. The welfare state would cease to exist because they won’t get off welfare and would lose their vote so we could vote in politicians who would get rid of welfare…it’s a genius plan.
I don’t know. Would you give up 50,000 dollars a year as a married couple in exchange for being allowed to participate in a popularity contest every 4 years knowing your vote won’t effect the outcome anyway? More importantly would you give up a fortune in medical benefits via Medicare? I wouldn’t, and doubt there would be many takers.
Ok. Then no voting. Boomers stop voting, younger generations are given option of not participating and welfare state ceases to exist. Oh, and we stop sending money to endless wars.
No more geriatric congress members either. Seems like a win win.
My point was largely that the welfare state is well supported by younger generations even if they aren’t directly benefiting. Under this model you are mostly left with 20 to 40 something’s voting. If you think urban professionals living in or near blue cities are going to eliminate these programs you are engaging in some serious wishful thinking. A majority of them are ideologically wed to the idea.
Legal gimmicks won’t fix the problem. It will require a changing of minds on a broad scale. Hopefully we don’t have to get to the point of Argentina before we are willing to consider a change in direction.
The idea has some superficial ideological appeal to me. There is just no reason to believe it’s going to eliminate the welfare state, and could arguably have the opposite effect.
Who is this "we"? LOL
It’s hard for me to believe that SS/Medicare are the problem of the boomers given the payments we have been putting in for our whole lives. Funny, how we are perceived as a ‘suck’ on the system when we have been taxed at high rates to pay for the expectation of these services with no hope of not paying that tax. You work, you pay FICA, no way to avoid it. And yet …..
We have plenty of money to fund war that never ends even in the face of criminal lying to get us there. We spend billions that are unaudited into regions that supposedly are an existential threat to us yet our government is the main pot stirrer that creates the conflict. The border is wide open and all must be fed and cared for, looking to allow THEM to vote - but let’s take the vote away from the boomer suck. Let’s go after the only program where billions were paid into it never the ones that are truly the suck.
So many other ways to salvage the train wreck this country has become other than targeting SS/Medicare and most of the boomer suck would willingly help. When we are gone - when we go silent - then who will you blame?
I have no shame in my expectation of receiving Medicare and SSI. I paid for it. I was MADE to pay for it. I have watched, powerless, to stop Viet Nam, Iraq I and Ii, Afghanistan and now Ukraine. There is your suck, my friend. The only boomers I am ashamed of are the ones in Washington DC and state governments. And more than the boomers put them there and fuel the vote to keep them there.
You have a point, but everyone who is working can make the same point: I am paying into a system that will not pay me back. This system is failing and it will collapse, and those that suffer will be the furthest removed from the original agreement (that was doomed to fail). Either we cut our losses and get out (sooner rather than later) or a greater catastrophe will fall on generations who will not be prepared to deal with it. It will be unfair and painful but it is also unavoidable.
I have empathy for you in that but to cut off the programs for those in retirement, for those that would have nothing without it - catastrophic. I have done what I could to help myself offset the need but I have no way to deal with medical insurance. It has to be salvaged for that part if nothing else. And I stand by my claim: there is an assload of things that could be cut and reigned in BEFORE this entitlement (and that could be used to relieve YOU of the obligation). That should be explored first.
I am retired. I receive a pension that is not funded by Social Security, and I still have concerns that 99% of the world is sitting atop of an economic house of cards that will fall and that my pension will be sacrificed for the greater good (Along with Social Security and Medicare). I think the suffering we are all fearing is inevitable.
I agree that there are many programs that should be sacrificed to ease the suffering, but then you are talking about a complete overhaul of the government, and the political culture that has given rise to the elitist, rent seeking beast it has become, that will be generations in the making and not soon enough to avoid the havoc this financial catastrophe will unleash on future generations. I HOPE I AM WRONG.
That change is no different from deciding to overhaul who contributes. Any move we make - even to let it fail - will be catastrophic to seniors regardless of their dependence on SSI or Medicare. We have already mortgaged the future generations. And it wasn’t the boomers or SSI or Medicare that caused that. It’s been escalating since America unleashed the Bush’s and Obama’s. Boomers may own Bush but we don’t own the supposed solution of Obama (though I’m not sure we would have been better off with Romney). So the only real choice is an overhaul of the government and the heavy lifting that entails.
I agree with you. The biggest hurdle we face is that most people would rather believe that voting better people into the leviathan, which generally devolves into voting for the lesser of two evils (Spoiler alert: evil wins), is the solution. We got our work cut out for us.
Exactly right - and another thought for the Gato-Pals: do you think if Medicare/SSI taxes were relieved from your paychecks that there wouldn’t be another ‘tax’ to replace it with even less of a chance of payback?
The young generation left able to vote will vote themselves an income-for-all, removing everyone from being able to vote and then we have our true dictatorship
Yep. Most people already trade their freedom for the illusion of security. This would just strip away the illusion.
Imagine a generation who would rather spend money on Americans as opposed to foreigners. Sounds a little nationalist. Ugh.
"spend money on Americans"
You, MrsS, are part of the problem.
Imagine a generation that didn’t want to spend other people’s money at all...now that’d be something really novel!
It’s not the Boomers - it’s the lobbying system!
Several books have been written (I wish I had written down their titles and authors) analyzing this. The authors found that, decade after decade, the people living between approximately 1960 and 2000 repeatedly voted for fiscal restraint, small federal government (remember the ‘Reagan Revolution’?), balanced budgets, etc. But after their candidates were elected, the lobbyists got their way with more money for every pet section of the economy. I know I personally have fought against the ‘largess’ all of my decades of life!
i'm curious, what's the difference?
who was running and supporting this lobbying system? seems like mostly the boomers. they have and still do wield massively outsized political power. boomers are 53% of the house and 68% of the senate.
No, we were clueless and duped about the lobbying system! We truly thought that our votes mattered, and that we would get the fiscal responsibility that we repeatedly voted for. Then the elected politicians would end up doing the exact opposite of what we wanted - because they were all beholden to the money through the lobbying system!
The solution has to be: eliminate the lobbying system!
And I’m surprised at your tyranny, Gato. You want to be 70 years old someday, still paying taxes but having NO say in your government? You want to be 80 and at the complete mercy of younger people voting you into some forced euthanasia program? No taxation without representation!
And I am curious, do you see many, if any, of the younger members doing anything differently?
I think you blame boomers for a lot that was instigated by the prior generation. Young boomer here. I get so fed up with this classification. There's a tremendous difference from one end of the age range to the other.
Your comment regarding being curious about the difference:
With the younger (non-Boomer) generation, what's the difference? I see no fiscal restraint. Instead, they think money can be printed continuously without any consequences or ramifications.
Jesus. I guess you'll be advocating for euthanasia of boomers next.
I am astonished to discover that you would conflate ALL of a generation with the few that are in Congress.
Frankly, I thought you were smarter than that.
The only viable option is the Kingdom of God. Be in the Word.
Shiva the warrior God will reign supreme, that is the lesson of history. It’s coming, it has always been coming.
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/empyre-of-shades
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/the-devil-in-the-devil-out
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/adonai-s
This assumes that votes count.
Most of my generation and my parents’ generation who were sold on the idea of SS honestly believed this was a benefit we were paying for. Also, please remember that we had no choice regarding contributions to the pot and if you were self-employed I can assure you those contributions dug deep. We were led (mis-led to be sure) to believe this was the same as putting money in an investment account to be there for us when we retired. In fact, it seemed an enforced investment to many as many would have preferred investing that money in their own accounts. The government decided that we were too stupid to do that and thus we would be impoverished at retirement. Some truth to that as I consider the meager amounts my grandparents lived off of. Honest, hard-working people in the midst of the Midwest farm communities, they had very little at retirement. They continued to grow much of their own food in order to feed themselves until they were forced into a nursing home. They didn’t survive into their 90’s with the sole intent of making life hard for the children. While the idea of SS, Medicare, etc is certainly a bad idea in retrospect, and one we should gradually move ourselves out of over time, your idea of immediately ending those things are about as useful as the genetic injections. As in a very good way to quickly - and harshly - depopulate the country. Particularly of older folks who you must think are useless eaters and poor folks who are a mixed bag of people who work hard and get nowhere as well as people who enjoy being fed by someone else. Overall, as we run out of money for these things, we will have starving elders and the poor, anyway. Some of us are doing what we can to prepare for that by becoming as independent as we can. Including using the medical system as close to the zero mark as possible since it’s so toxic in any case. You want o end reliance on socialism? Help communities find ways to divorce themselves from reliance on those systems. An 80 yo might be living awhile longer but they can’t get out and go back to work effectively if they are feeble, can’t drive, can’t think straight, etc. Encouraging more natural doctors to help people wean themselves off of big Pharma so that they are healthy as well as alive will also encourage folks to want to contribute to their communities more. And become more independent. Particularly those of us who ARE USED TO WORKING OUR BUTTS OFF ALL OUR LIVES. We are retired. We are working to homestead and do our best to be independent of anyone. We have saved our money and have our retirement plans. We have our calloused hands and achy muscles to show for our hard work. And actually enjoy our efforts and the results of them. How about you? What if no one was paying you for all your interesting words? You ready to grow your own carrots; have your medicine garden installed and know how to use it; manage your home off-grid; shoot and process your meat or raise and butcher it? Do you have your plan in place for paying your property taxes so your land won’t be taken away from you? Got all that in place? If you do, then also realize that once the handouts end, a few hundred thousand very hungry and angry folks are going to be looking at your hard work and will most certainly come your way to take it for themselves. Are you ready for that as well?
I have read this sort of stuff for decades but we don’t seem to be coming up with solutions to help bridge our way out of the system. It’s getting a wee late for that because either we all get sucked into slavery through the new, global financial system or we all starve together when the current system implodes as it surely will. I’d like to see us get creative and come up with something more useful than “take away voting rights if on a handout.” Mass starvation and the chaos and robbery that will follow that will NOT fix the problem.
Very well said. An awful lot of those GenXers who us old fogies are "robbing" couldn't grow a damn carrot if their lives depended on it.
Gee, I'm sorry, I spent 20 years working minimally outside the home, because I thought it was important to actually *raise* our kids and make a "home"....a real home, a haven from the outside world for my husband and children, where we spent time together and taught our children the values we felt were important. My husband was a mid-income earner, we payed plenty of taxes and lived very frugally, and raised our children, who are now all (and have been) working full time. Then I went to work full-time, now at 61 I've retired, right now am living quite happily and abundantly on about $1500 a month, will start receiving about $1000 a month SS in the next year. But forgive me, I'm just a vulture who's sucking dry the teat of Gen Xers.
Well-said
Great idea...... except that who gets voted in matters less and less now that every part of our society is permanently in the hands of a university sheep-dipped Woke elite. "Virtue signalling liberals have colonised every single institution of civil society in America. They have been groomed, at the universities, to such pitch-perfect self-righteousness that it would never even occur to them that they might be imposing their ‘pseudo-values’ on a public with little realistic means of democratic resistance." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
So the welfare gravy train will continue whoever gets voted in....until our whole 'democracy' eventually comes crashing down.
Excellent points. As an ashamed member of the Boomer Generation I believe we have been the most destructive generation and responsible for the financial and culture mess we are in. Your proposal is a curious one (coming from someone who would lose the right to vote under it). However, if it were extended to anyone receiving a government benefit (college loan forgiveness anyone) would there even be anyone eligible to vote?
Other than complete collapse I don’t see anyway out of the current financial trajectory.
We are a little more than 100 years into the progressive marxist American experiment, and its failure is obvious to those who can see. Stuck in the no-win of playing a new game, by old rules has hamstrung any hopes of repair or correction.
If we are to continue this gravy train then the premise has to change.
I like your idea of changing who is eligible to vote. I've usually looked to who actually pays federal tax gets to vote federally, state tax gets to vote at the state level, and (documentable, not assumed) sales tax payments qualifies one to vote locally. There must be skin in the game.
This blinded by the light of democratic farce mentality has put us into an obvious death spiral, at least to those who can see.
There must be skin in the game.
Although Nicholas Nassim Taleb can be pretty obnoxious (IMO), he is dead right about this.
An additional aspect of "skin in the game" might be to make [full] citizenship contingent on an individual performing some kind of "national service" -- and not necessarily/solely military service. Remember the 1960s/70s VISTA program (Volunteers In Service To America)? Perhaps it could be revived, and made into something of value. What we *earn* is worth more than what we're *given*.
I had leaned towards this model as well (military, environmental, community service, two years minimum, etc), but I have over time moved away from it. If someone does this, voluntarily, great, maybe some sort of credit or perk is earned. But what happens all too often, and especially if compulsory, is since these are generally gov't programs, or worse "public private partnerships", they become indoctrination centers, breeding more social dependents.