Yes, truer words were na'er spoken than when Harry S Truman said "If you want to live like a Republican, vote like a Democrat."

My wife & I have planned our retirement as if SS didn't exist. (We began this about '82.) From the looks of things, I'm extremely glad we did.

It'd be more interesting to see how the ratio of payees to recipients has changed over time (with PERS also.)

That's going to affect the over/under on SS going down or not.

As a younger person, I perceive SS as the single greatest Ponzi scheme ever propogated upon a populous. I already put in for several greeter jobs and said I would be able to start in 2040.

"The Greatest Generation" of...entitled robber barons.

This sort of reminds me of the union movement. People complain a lot about unions and how awful they are but just look back in history to before they were around.
My father's people came out of the coal-mining towns of Pennsylvania and the way miners were treated in the early days of America was beyond shocking.
I believe in a social security safety net and if you go back to before it was around there was some horrendous stuff for elderly people.
I'd prefer changing the empire component of the equation. Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and trim the "defense" budget so it isn't bigger than the defense budgets of all other nations of the world combined.
Providing for the elderly and sick? I'm okay with that.

This sort of reminds me of the union movement.

You're quite sure it doesn't sort of remind you of the Middle East, eh?

It sort of reminds me of the union movement too.

Both began with the best of intentions and both are now corrupt failures.

I wonder what these two have in common...?

Interesting. I've paid in three times as much as she received, yet I'll be lucky to see $22.54 back out of it....

My grandfather was one of those coal miners that Bill referenced. Yes the unions did improve some elements of work for them but he still died in 1944 at age 63 of a heart condition likely connected to Black Lung. Back in the day, if you broke the strike the mines became a dangerous place. My dad said they usually placed a couple of union enforcers at the mine entrance who would dump out your lunch and water as a reminder that a strike was on and what might furhter await you should you decide to descend and work as a scab.

My father collected social security after a successful career and didn't need a penny of it. He felt guilty collecting it but he figured it wasn't welfare since he paid into the system.

Remember when brave politicians actually talked about means testing for social security. But that requires the relatively sophisticated view that we have no absolute rights to money--whether legitimatley earned or otherwise.

Sam Smith reports on a great one-line summary of our skewed priorities:

Tweet of the day: Anyone notice that the pres signed a $680 billion defense approp bill in the midst of our heated debates about $90b a yr for hc? - Chris Hayes

The keeping old people out of bread lines part of Social Security is good. The retirement savings part - not so good.

It sounds like the death panel idea has a tight little constituency here.

The Soc. Sec. system would not be a such a Ponzi scheme if the federal government had not systematically removed (I'd like to use the word "stolen") funds from the earnings of the trust fund. But they needed to pay for wars and other such things.