The Eskimos famously dealt with the old people problem by putting their elders out on the ice. it relieved the community of the burden of caring for them.
Read your essay today, Bill, and found I am the subject of it. I am 76, worked all my life, paid into social security begrudgingly, along with all the other taxes that the USG and associated states, counties, cities, school systems, utilities, etc. demanded. I am one of the fortunate ones. I was able to start a business, grow it and then sell it such that I banked a fair amount of money. I am not of your financial level by any means, but I don’t need to rely solely on social security to survive. Now don’t get me wrong. If I lose social security it will adversely affect my lifestyle, but I won’t be shopping in the Alpo aisle for dinner. Now guys like you probably don’t give a hoot about social security, and in fact should surrender their monthly paycheck back to the USG just to help slow its demise. You do that don’t you, Bill?
Now, you discuss how these old timers are contributing to the social security demise, both by living long enough to get more out of it than they deserve and by depriving the younger generations with opportunities for advancement. What a load of CRAP, Bill. We paid our social security, begrudgingly or not, because we were ordered to and because we were promised that we’d get it back as a return on our investment. Now the USG needs [wants] to renig on the deal and you think, or at least hint at, that is a good deal. How much of your worth was gotten by your business partners renigging on deals you made?
Second, you discuss how old timers are working too long! More CRAP, Bill. Some of those old timers are still working because they have to since even with their social security they don’t have sufficient means to live at an acceptable level. Some old timers went back to work because they are bored with retirement [“Welcome to Wal-Mart”]. Lots of career movement there! So, to wrap up this rant, Bill, I say your argument in support of your essay fail. Once again, I end with the recurring complaint: Give us financial advice and skip the political bitching and social sermonizing.
Great post Dan, I agree. Especially with Bonners political bitching and social sermonizing. I'm so sick of it this is the essay I have read in over a year. Not much has changed.
Well Bill, like you and your wife, my wife and I, as well as most of your readers are the demographic you lightly excoreated today. We are Boomers. We are a very large cohort. We grew up in the cold war period. We were children of the fifties and sixties. We were told to get educated, go to college, better yet go to graduate school, get a professional degree...just be better. Work hard and work long. Most of us did as directed. We procreated and took care of our families. We absorbed the cultural dictates and followed the rules including those that govern our pensions and social security; we did not make the rules. Yes, we have the money. Yes, there are more of us and no, I do not regret a moment of it. And yes, my children will benefit. So what?
Tom, "right on" !!! I was born in 1947 and grew up in a poor situation but followed orders and worked hard for what my wife and I have. God has allowed us to have good health and that's the most valuable asset any of us can have. If I make it to "99" like my dad I'll probably run out of money but that's ok. My daughter and grandchildren will enjoy what's left. "WE", all of us old farts who worked for what we have should not feel bad for what we have. "WE" followed the game plan put before us.
The ponzi scheme is going to be very harsh on those behind us. They can thank FDR for the ponzi scheme.
Bill, I have enjoyed your writings for at least 25 years. Don't always agree but I know you arn't looking for a pat on the back. I respect what you have accomplished with your business and the multiple properties around the world, a big accomplishment. NO, you don't need your S.S. check but I bet you put it in the back for a rainy day fund and so you should, you paid your taxes so you deserve it. Someday the under 50 crowd may wake up to the scam and VOTE for a big change, I hope so, but don't hold your breath. IN the meantime we'll keep paying for all the illegals who didn't pay a DAMN cent into the fund!
The Libertarian worldview on display. Murder them while they are in the womb and contribute to the low birth rates and when their "monetary contribution" to society lessens get rid of them. That sixth commandment that forbids murder you know that its just optional (just like the other nine).
In regards to the quote from the Financial Times I believe its almost always been the case that people in their 50's and older are doing better from a financial stand point than they were in their 20's. Let's see if its not the same for our current group of twenty-year old's in another 25 years.
Thanks Bill. You really cut through the chaff in this one and I agree entirely. The whole awful mess is obviously unsustainable... in the words of Alex Haley — 'Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.' Loved the separate wings of the same buzzard comment.
I'm angry about the misspent money; money that was collected for future SS benefits and was improperly spent by the congress. Remember Gore's SS lock box; political theater. I'll be 90 in July and have been collecting SS since age 65. That's 25 years, but I paid into SS for 45 years. I was drafted, during my junior semester., and spent 4 years in the USAF. I was being paid about $60.00/month as an A1C including overseas and hazardous pay, but I paid SS taxes. I paid the maximum SS tax until I was about 70; I'm still paying SS taxes. I calculated that if I took my SS tax and invested it at 5%, I would have had a multiple of the income paid to me by SS. But I wasn't given that choice. Teachers were, pastors were, RR unions were, and they all made out better than I did. So, don't lecture me about taking SS benefits.
The taxable maximum for SS Tax is $184500. Just raise this limit and high wage earners, and their employers, would pay more SS Tax. Simple. (currently, this is a 'regressive tax.') TRW
I recall an episode of Sanford and Son in which Fred, thinking he was dying, lamented that he felt like an old Eskimo left out on a block of ice, to which his sister-in-law, Esther, remarked, "You old heathen, where you're going you gonna wish you had a big block of ice."
I am 76, the age at which most men, statistically, shuffle of this mortal coil. I have tried to age gracefully but my body is less cooperative in that endeavor on a regular basis. Having never married and without children I am now the last surviving member of my immediate family and my few friends have steadily died off. Now the looming question becomes how to exit this life gracefully...
Social Security is a massive entitlement program that, as it's now constituted, is unsustainable.
FDR started it during the Depression to give the elderly a stipend to allow them to decline with a measure of dignity; not as impoverished indigents.
And most of those who funded it, once retired, now want what they paid for.
But few realize that this entitlement program is funded by current taxpayers; not by decades of monthly payroll deductions
Apparently today's retirees thought the government put their payroll remittances into a "lock box".
The harsh fact is the monthly remittance workers paid over the years for their Social Security was spent by the government the moment it reached the Treasury Department.
And now there are no longer enough taxpayers funding Social Security to pay today's beneficiaries the benefits they expect.
The simple solution is to proffer tax deductions to today's beneficiaries for their willingness to forgo their monthly stipend.
It won't save Social Security but it will push out the date of its collapse for those who demand this entitlement the vast majority of whom are not indigent
Read your essay today, Bill, and found I am the subject of it. I am 76, worked all my life, paid into social security begrudgingly, along with all the other taxes that the USG and associated states, counties, cities, school systems, utilities, etc. demanded. I am one of the fortunate ones. I was able to start a business, grow it and then sell it such that I banked a fair amount of money. I am not of your financial level by any means, but I don’t need to rely solely on social security to survive. Now don’t get me wrong. If I lose social security it will adversely affect my lifestyle, but I won’t be shopping in the Alpo aisle for dinner. Now guys like you probably don’t give a hoot about social security, and in fact should surrender their monthly paycheck back to the USG just to help slow its demise. You do that don’t you, Bill?
Now, you discuss how these old timers are contributing to the social security demise, both by living long enough to get more out of it than they deserve and by depriving the younger generations with opportunities for advancement. What a load of CRAP, Bill. We paid our social security, begrudgingly or not, because we were ordered to and because we were promised that we’d get it back as a return on our investment. Now the USG needs [wants] to renig on the deal and you think, or at least hint at, that is a good deal. How much of your worth was gotten by your business partners renigging on deals you made?
Second, you discuss how old timers are working too long! More CRAP, Bill. Some of those old timers are still working because they have to since even with their social security they don’t have sufficient means to live at an acceptable level. Some old timers went back to work because they are bored with retirement [“Welcome to Wal-Mart”]. Lots of career movement there! So, to wrap up this rant, Bill, I say your argument in support of your essay fail. Once again, I end with the recurring complaint: Give us financial advice and skip the political bitching and social sermonizing.
Great post Dan, I agree. Especially with Bonners political bitching and social sermonizing. I'm so sick of it this is the essay I have read in over a year. Not much has changed.
Well Bill, like you and your wife, my wife and I, as well as most of your readers are the demographic you lightly excoreated today. We are Boomers. We are a very large cohort. We grew up in the cold war period. We were children of the fifties and sixties. We were told to get educated, go to college, better yet go to graduate school, get a professional degree...just be better. Work hard and work long. Most of us did as directed. We procreated and took care of our families. We absorbed the cultural dictates and followed the rules including those that govern our pensions and social security; we did not make the rules. Yes, we have the money. Yes, there are more of us and no, I do not regret a moment of it. And yes, my children will benefit. So what?
Tom, "right on" !!! I was born in 1947 and grew up in a poor situation but followed orders and worked hard for what my wife and I have. God has allowed us to have good health and that's the most valuable asset any of us can have. If I make it to "99" like my dad I'll probably run out of money but that's ok. My daughter and grandchildren will enjoy what's left. "WE", all of us old farts who worked for what we have should not feel bad for what we have. "WE" followed the game plan put before us.
The ponzi scheme is going to be very harsh on those behind us. They can thank FDR for the ponzi scheme.
Jim Marshall
Ah - my friend - I think you have missed the point.
This is commentary not a PLAN. Ease up. Taking things personally ?
Yes, but it is personal.
Bill, I have enjoyed your writings for at least 25 years. Don't always agree but I know you arn't looking for a pat on the back. I respect what you have accomplished with your business and the multiple properties around the world, a big accomplishment. NO, you don't need your S.S. check but I bet you put it in the back for a rainy day fund and so you should, you paid your taxes so you deserve it. Someday the under 50 crowd may wake up to the scam and VOTE for a big change, I hope so, but don't hold your breath. IN the meantime we'll keep paying for all the illegals who didn't pay a DAMN cent into the fund!
Jim Marshall
The Libertarian worldview on display. Murder them while they are in the womb and contribute to the low birth rates and when their "monetary contribution" to society lessens get rid of them. That sixth commandment that forbids murder you know that its just optional (just like the other nine).
In regards to the quote from the Financial Times I believe its almost always been the case that people in their 50's and older are doing better from a financial stand point than they were in their 20's. Let's see if its not the same for our current group of twenty-year old's in another 25 years.
Thanks Bill. You really cut through the chaff in this one and I agree entirely. The whole awful mess is obviously unsustainable... in the words of Alex Haley — 'Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.' Loved the separate wings of the same buzzard comment.
I have a better idea.Take the 5 trillion in revenue that the government gets in revenue and
give it to us.Problem solved.Of course the government employees have fat pensions and they can live of that.
It's all Biden's fault.
😀
I'm angry about the misspent money; money that was collected for future SS benefits and was improperly spent by the congress. Remember Gore's SS lock box; political theater. I'll be 90 in July and have been collecting SS since age 65. That's 25 years, but I paid into SS for 45 years. I was drafted, during my junior semester., and spent 4 years in the USAF. I was being paid about $60.00/month as an A1C including overseas and hazardous pay, but I paid SS taxes. I paid the maximum SS tax until I was about 70; I'm still paying SS taxes. I calculated that if I took my SS tax and invested it at 5%, I would have had a multiple of the income paid to me by SS. But I wasn't given that choice. Teachers were, pastors were, RR unions were, and they all made out better than I did. So, don't lecture me about taking SS benefits.
The taxable maximum for SS Tax is $184500. Just raise this limit and high wage earners, and their employers, would pay more SS Tax. Simple. (currently, this is a 'regressive tax.') TRW
I recall an episode of Sanford and Son in which Fred, thinking he was dying, lamented that he felt like an old Eskimo left out on a block of ice, to which his sister-in-law, Esther, remarked, "You old heathen, where you're going you gonna wish you had a big block of ice."
I am 76, the age at which most men, statistically, shuffle of this mortal coil. I have tried to age gracefully but my body is less cooperative in that endeavor on a regular basis. Having never married and without children I am now the last surviving member of my immediate family and my few friends have steadily died off. Now the looming question becomes how to exit this life gracefully...
Not to worry as death is the same as life, natural.
The concern is not with death itself, which is inevitable, but how to make it to the other side as gracefully as possible...
Social Security is a massive entitlement program that, as it's now constituted, is unsustainable.
FDR started it during the Depression to give the elderly a stipend to allow them to decline with a measure of dignity; not as impoverished indigents.
And most of those who funded it, once retired, now want what they paid for.
But few realize that this entitlement program is funded by current taxpayers; not by decades of monthly payroll deductions
Apparently today's retirees thought the government put their payroll remittances into a "lock box".
The harsh fact is the monthly remittance workers paid over the years for their Social Security was spent by the government the moment it reached the Treasury Department.
And now there are no longer enough taxpayers funding Social Security to pay today's beneficiaries the benefits they expect.
The simple solution is to proffer tax deductions to today's beneficiaries for their willingness to forgo their monthly stipend.
It won't save Social Security but it will push out the date of its collapse for those who demand this entitlement the vast majority of whom are not indigent