My grandfather HATED this Ponzi scheme when it was first created under the Roosevelt Administration back in the 30s. He said the government had no business, whatsoever, trying to guarantee a minimum standard of living for anyone - AND HE WAS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!
Fast forward 50 years and I'm having conversations with my mother and then my father-in-law regarding the obvious insolvency of Social Security:
Mom: We deserve every penny in our Social Security accounts - we paid into the system for decades!
Me: Mom, you don't have an "account" with Social Security ... there are no funds there ... they are simply waiting on withholdings from my earnings to arrive so they can shoot it back out to you. And, be very glad you do not have an "account," like in a bank ... because if you did, even if they gave you 10% on all of the Social Security taxes that were abducted from you over the years ... based on the current Social Security payouts ... you would have burned through your "account" in the first 4 to 5 years.
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Me: Dad, suck every penny you can possibly get out the Social Security system ... because it may crater before I see any benefits from it and will certainly be dead before your grandchildren get to whatever is considered "retirement age" when they get old.
Dad: You really think so?!
Me: I KNOW SO. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and somebody soon will be left holding the empty bag. As soon as Social Security funds started being funneled into the federal government's general fund - thanks to Lyndon B. Johnson - it was immediately accelerated into an unsustainable system. I am willing to make a trade with the federal government, right now ... if my children do not have to put a penny into the Social Security system, EVER, I will continue to pay Social Security taxes for the rest of my working life and not take even one cent out of it, in return.
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As far as Social Security and Medicare are concerned, the federal government has been operated by a bunch of little Bernie Madoffs.
B.
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