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Millions of seniors live on Social Security. These are the
folks who worked hard in the era of the 1940's into the 1990's
and many of them didn't work for employers who had pension
funds. Some worked for employers who downsized or merged. Others
had small family businesses and paid into the system. These
folks never made enough over the cost of living, the cost of
raising children and the costs of growing older to accumulate
much in the way of savings. I know many folks in their thirties
and forties now who get a little bit ahead only to have the
savings wiped out by an illness or other reversal of fortune.
The sum of it is, when they get old enough to retire, they
won't have any retirement other than Social Security. And that
may not be there.
What was touted as an "insurance" program (not an
entitlement) in the 1940's through the 1960's has been revealed
for what it is: a government Ponzi scheme. The government never
had a lockbox on the funds, helped itself to the money at will,
and left IOU's for another generation to pay.
If you or I did that, we'd be in jail. Probably a federal
prison.
But the federal government can get away with a 65-year old
rip-off like this, during much of those years with the workers
totally blinded to the fact they weren't buying retirement
insurance. I distinctly recall Social Security being called
"insurance" over and over again ... we were paying
into a mandatory insurance program against the vicissitudes of
life, medical and other emergencies that can rob savings, and
against poverty in old age.
No we weren't. We didn't buy a policy, we bought a Ponzi
scheme and the federal government just grabbed more tax dollars
with a promise and a wink and both fingers cross behind its
back.
Social Security is the most blatant example of the
government's double standard for itself and individuals. If it
pulls off a giant fraud, it's a government issue. If we do it,
it's a crime.
This isn't to advocate individuals being allowed to gin up
Ponzi schemes or perpetrate frauds. What is on the table here is
the government not being called to account by the citizens for
its perpetration of fraud. The reason is, so far it's been
making the payments on Social Security retirement benefits. So
far.
Maybe that's why there's such a movement on for euthanasia in
this nation. If you can't pay the elderly, then kill them.
That's one way to solve the problem of an insolvent Social
Security un-trust account. Oddly enough, it's the Social
Security issue that's always brought up at election time to
frighten the older folks into voting for the Democrats, those
friends of the people who brought this scheme into being.
Was there a better way? Of course. Mandatory deductions are
good for lower income workers whose paychecks never go far
enough and whose savings, if any, evaporate with major
emergencies concerning health, children, or the demise of the
family car that takes the breadwinner to work.
Parents cannot count on their kids to take care of them
either. Yes, I took care of my mother but I'm over 60 and my
generation was more apt to do those things. This generation is
looking out for Number Uno and if the parents get shunted aside,
oh well. It's part of our new "family values" system,
which changes yearly.
We also have a working class of single moms and dads with
kids to bring up, and not all these folk can provide for daily
needs plus set aside investments and retirement funds. That's
the higher income groups who do that, not the receptionists and
clerks at the local businesses.
We've become a lot more stratified now than we were in the
middle of the 20th century when most working folks had only
month-to-month incomes. But the necessities of life were cheap
also. Luxuries belonged to the professional class or the
entrepreneurs, along with investments and retirement plans. The
rest just plodded along. We have a larger class of higher-income
folks now, largely due to the technological revolution and the
pay scales for the technically skilled. But as more and more
enter the field, what will become of the pay scales?
This nation has an enormous amount of "working
poor" which I define as those whose income is subject to
Parkinson's law: "Expenditures always rise to meet income
so there is never any surplus." Millions of working
Americans fall into that category.
Mandatory savings is a good idea. But, not giving a permanent
retirement account and a choice of where to invest the money
deducted is not good policy. There is another law, not
Parkinson's, that is in effect: "If the government can
spend it, it will."
For all this, we still have people in Washington, D.C., who
object to privatization of Social Security. These must be the
same people who believe in euthanasia for the elderly.
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