[Aceroassert]

I was hoping I would get enough to upgrade to hamburger from dog food. I never expected steak.

If you expected SS to be your sole retirement income, shame on you for being so foolish.

[Toscoropreark]

When we were growing up you either contributed to SS or a Pension plan. Why should pension plans be considered guaranteed and SS not?

Your kids aren't funding your payout from a Pension. Your generation should have had more kids if you wished the Ponzi scheme to keep chugging along.

[Johnny]

What about you didn't invade Iraq and put the money into SS instead?

[Janarealiti]

What about you didn't invade Iraq and put the money into SS instead?

This is an excellent post because it blames the Republicans for everything without proposing a workable solution.

[r7rGOhvd]

When we were growing up you either contributed to SS or a Pension plan. Why should pension plans be considered guaranteed and SS not?

When a company fails, the pension does not always stay fully funded.

Due to your mismanagement, this is what has basically occurred with SS.

JM

[appletango]

FWIW Quebec has a national pension plan, and it's still solvent.

Why can't Yanks get capitalism right?

[TpDoctorOneTp]

You could have had another child.

I am OK with continuing to do a portion of SS. The need based portion, for example.

JM

[Karinochka]

Adopted a Chinese child? Or a foster child?

Despite some of my comments, I do believe that you are overall a good parent.

JM
(by comments, I mean comments against your generation)

[Heclailia]

They should have just set it up as an investment fund like CalPERS did. CalPERS did great as an independent agency until they broke it up into a bunch of individual retirement funds then the financial services industry got to charge much larger fees and suck the blood out of it until it was a dried up husk. There is no reason SSI couldn't operate as its own investment fund thus cutting out the middle man and over all paying lower fees.

[happyman]

Adopted a Chinese child? Or a foster child?

Despite some of my comments, I do believe that you are overall a good parent.

JM
(by comments, I mean comments against your generation)

The comments against my entire generation are a bit misplaced in my opinion.

The politicians screwed us over, and regardless of whether we had voted dem or repug, it wouldn't have change anything. So bad mouthing an entire generation because the politicians were to cowardly to attempt to fix the problem they created seems a bit harsh. If you were 20 years older what would you have done?

And I wouldn't suggest telling any couple that is having problems that adopting a Chinese child would solve all their problems.

[Anykeylo]

Hysterical for trying to safeguard the promises the country made to them during their lives? How dare they..

[CevepBiageCefm]

His ire should be to the politicians that were lining their pockets, not to all of us that kept their promise to the previous generation and made sure they were taken care of in their older age.

Even if politicians were truly and enthusiastically depraved in their theft, they couldn't possibly take as big a chunk of the budget as entitlement programs do. The difference between millions and trillions is more than just a couple letters.

[Gadarett]

Social Security and Medicare are quite obviously designed to transfer wealth to the old. They would be means tested if they were merely safety nets meant to prevent the old from suffering and dying in poverty.

Well nobody who makes a load of money and pays in actually believes they should be deprived of their due. Ever. For anything.

[extessarere]

I don't see how younger generations are doing any better. If among the 18-45 demographic there was a mass movement towards a third party that wasn't batshit insane then maybe we'd have something to complain about. But we'll just keep on voting for the same two parties that ****ed things up in the first place, who keep running on the same ****ed up platforms, and have shown no willingness to un**** things up.

There's about 79 million boomers. 163 million registered voters. So even if every boomer is registered and voting there's still plenty of blame to go around.

[snunsebrugs]

What bank should the government deposit a trillion dollars into? What happens if the bank fails? Should the government bail out its own trillion dollar deposit?

The government can manage its own fund. Some countries already do it.

[JohnVK]

As of June, 2011 there was an ~$21.4 trillion unfunded liability in the SS program representing the difference between all taxes that will be paid and all benefits received over the lifetimes of everyone in the system now — workers and beneficiaries alike.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...security_n.htm

[pavlik]

The government can manage its own fund. Some countries already do it.

No country would be operating a fund on the same scale as the United States. Compound interest isn't magical, it requires worthwhile investment opportunities. Pump 2.5 trillion dollars into the market, have it administered by a bunch of GS-14s who have no incentive to outperform the market, and you'll wind up with a lot of waste, a lot of rich people getting richer, and a broke ass fund.

There's simply no excuse to impose a regressive tax that funds a boondoggle, when you could just let people invest their own money.