Tag: Social Security

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I was once discussing Social Security with a much younger colleague. She was convinced it wouldn’t be there when she got old enough to receive benefits and couldn’t understand why I was supporting a system that could be belly up at any time soon.

This recurring concern still continues to bother young people entering the work force — social security will be bankrupt by the time I retire. Why should I contribute to a failing system? My argument 30 years ago is the same one I will give young people today.

  1. If you are going to place a bet on what institutions are going to be around in 40 years, my mark goes on the U.S. Government. It has been around, as we know it, since 1789. The best estimate of businesses making it 100 years is 0.5 %.
  2. If Social Security collapses, there is a good chance that there any private businesses handling retirement accounts are also going to be in trouble as well. Hell if Social Security collapses there is a good reason to believe that there is no Federal Government, no Federal Reserve, and no law and order. So, good luck collecting on your 401K in this dire situation.
  3. My colleague, based on absolutely no evidence, thought she could invest her money better. But she wasn’t investing any money at all. She was spending every last dime to live. How she thought she was going to out invest Social Security was beyond me.

The corporate shill that encouraged me to invest in my company’s 401K advised me that retirement was a three legged stool — Social Security, 401K/pension, and savings. We needed all three in order to retire. For some reason, Social Security is seen as the weak leg of this stool is worrisome when it is the most dependable leg of the stool — just ask the 73% of retired people who depend upon social security for over half of their monthly income.

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I am always amazed when I hear young people complain about how they should be able to invest the money they give to Social Security into the stock market instead. Whenever I ask them how they are going to invest it, they invariably have a friend who knows what he is talking about. Hmm.

They would rather give their money to some Dude selling stocks than to the United States government which, for all its failings, has been around for 250 years supporting a retirement program that has been around for 90 years.

To which I get the response, Social Security is going to run out of money any way. I don’t think so, not as long as a majority of people continue to support it and the government continues to fund it. But, say it does go under, what effect will this have on any money in the stock market. I mean if the largest retirement program in the country stops cutting checks to retirees this will certainly have an effect on the stock market.

So, if I have to gamble, I am certainly going to place my marker on the U.S. government because, if there is an economic crisis at some point, my bets are that the U.S. government will survive much better than the Dude.

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Elon Musk’s request for personal Social Security information is baffling. The Social Security system is a macro problem in which Musk is taking a distinctly micro approach. How is getting personal information from individual social security recipients in any way helpful? If social security is a problem to look into, then the problem isn’t Jane Doe getting a $2,000 social security check each month. What needs looking at is financing the whole system.

Trump, supposedly an advocate for transparency in government, needs to inform the public on why this distribution of personal information is necessary for the task Musk is undertaking. Trump is allowing a businessman with no responsibility to anyone except Trump access to the personal details of an entire country. How is Musk protecting this data? What is preventing Musk from making a copy of this information for future use?

Department Secretaries can be called before Congress to answer questions regarding their department. The problem here is that Musk is without actual government responsibility. He is acting for Trump and Trump alone. It may be all on the up and up but there is no way to know for sure unless the painful process of institutional review is practiced. It isn’t happening and that is concerning.

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Charlie Kirk, conservative commentator, is suggesting cuts in Social Security because those no good seniors are just playing golf and watching television. They should be doing something constructive like helping people.

WTF. I thought that the whole underlying idea of the conservative movement was freedom. Freedom to do what ever the Hell you wanted to do, whenever the Hell you wanted to do it. Now Kirk wants me to give up my retirement fun in order to help people. Help people, no less, what kind of conservative is he. Oh, yes, a cheap one because he both proposes cutting social security payments and then wants these very same seniors to volunteer at schools and hospitals. That’s right less money and more work. What an asshole.

And, how exactly is that going to happen? If I get less money, I won’t have enough to retire comfortably and all of my free time will have to go to my part-time shift as a Wall Mart greeter. Of course, this is just another advantage to proposal. More cheap labor.

More grating and more dangerous is this frequent misconception that conservatives love to throw around about Social Security. They make it sound like a government handout. It isn’t. It is a government sponsored retirement plan. People pay into it until they retire, then they receive a monthly payment from the government. It is owed to you because you worked for it. You never should feel bad about taking this money. You deserve it.

So, in case Kirk has misunderstood me. Fuck you Charlie Kirk. You can pry my social security check from my cold dead hands.