- If you have a pulse you know Social Security is a Ponzi sheme. (If you don’t have a pulse but you’re still reading blogs…apparently you’re dead and my blog is a hellish eternal torment. Sorry about that. Hope you had fun on Halloween.)
- Everyone knows that Ponzi schemes are inherently doomed. (They’re also illegal.)
- Everyone younger than a certain age knows Social Security won’t be there for them. If you didn’t know that, read and memorize the last sentence. Act accordingly. You’ve been warned.
David Spade is 47 years old. He is old enough to know that there will be no (or very little) Social Security left for him. If you're about 47 and are counting on Social Security you're dumber than Joe Dirt. You don't want to be dumber than Joe Dirt!
- Thus Social Security is the rare sort of train wreck that is known decades in advance and it happens anyway.
But I am remiss. I failed to monument the year 2010 as the time when the end game began. Not that it matters. It was a done deal years ago. Many years of rudderless navel gazing procrastination made it mathematically unavoidable.
However, for the record, the year was 2010. I refer you to the Washington Post:
Note: The Washington Post requires a free login. You don’t have to bother. (I didn’t.) I’m merely using the link to officially mark the occasion.
The biggest problem with the SS program was our elected officials discovering all the $$$ in the Kitty and deciding it would be a peachy-keen idea to use those $$$ for never-intended purposes.
The SS system has been stable and fully funded for current and future claims at least 3 times in my lifetime of 73 years. Every time legislation, regulations, etc., is/are in place to ensure what’s needed will be there and the $$$ are piled up, our elected persons find ways to get their paws on the $$$.
Just like the fuel tax money. Ever notice how they rail about highways and bridges needing repair but there’s never money for it? We’d like to believe those $$$ collected on every gallon of gas we pay and charged to every trucker using the highways actually go into a fund for highway and bridge upkeep. Wrong.
All tax money gets lumped in one pile and everything promised to supporters, contributors, family, friends, friends of family, etc., etc., etc., gets “earmarked” out of the pile.
Party affiliation makes no difference. They’re all guilty. IMO it’s fiduciary irresponsibility and it’s no less a crime than anything Madoff or Corzine have done. At the very least it’s malfeasance.
Some years ago the Supreme Court ruled that the government had no power to put aside any part of tax revenue for special purposes. All monies gathered by all Federal taxes, tariffs, fees, etc. go into the general fund and are spent. Period. Dot.
Therefore, Social Security has been cash negative for as long as the government has been running e deficit. There is no social security trust fund. There is no highway trust fund paid for by gasoline taxes. Moreover, this isn’t Congress’ fault, since the Supreme Court (as I understand it) ruled that Congress does not have the authority to put aside money for a rainy day.
In other words; Lubricate well and often; this is gonna hurt worse than you thought it would.
5) Attempts to fix said problems tend to spawn advertisements where Grannies in wheelchairs are pushed over cliffs. Which I find kind of odd, as that’s where we’re all pretty much headed anyway.
HOWEVER, it does occur to me that the elderly reciepients of the current largess do tend to vote more often than those pay into the system. Playing into the fears of this class is, and has been a sure fire vote getter for a particular class that is only concerned with getting votes.
My only hope is that the rocks on the bottom of that cliff aren’t too sharp.
Social Security – Kind of like a decaying orbit around a sun.