Great article on Social Security.  A must read for anyone who doesn’t think there is an impending problem with Social Security.

The Truth About Social Securityby John F. McManus

To elaborate on this article, and the Social Security debacle in general, one must remember that SS was a “negative sum game” from the get-go.  Allow me to elaborate.  You and I take turns flipping an honest coin, and calling heads or tails.  This is  zero-sum game.  One winner, one loser, by equal amounts.  You win, say, one dollar, I lose one dollar.  OK, so far so good.  This is a zero-sum game.

Now, say for instance, we continue this endeavor with one big difference:  we add a huge middle-man, in this case the federal government and the Social Security Administration, and “chop” the pot, or rake in 15.3% of the money wagered (the 15.3 % is the SS tax, paid by the employer and the employee).  Now, this becomes a “negative-sum game” because you and I have a negative result from this transaction in the long run.  In the long run, we will both lose money, because the “tax man cometh” and rakes in his pound of flesh.  By the way, the tax man did not do a damn thingto earn any percentage.  Just a bunch of lazy, fat bureaucrats sitting on their collective asses, “managing” a negative sum endeavor. 

 Wake up, people,  Social Security is a tax, not an asset!!  You do NOT own your SS taxes.  You own nothing!!   The political hacks in Washington can do any damn thing they want to with your Social Security money.  If you owned it, you could pull it out, quit the program, or whatever the hell you wanted to do.  But you can’t because you “own” NOTHING.

More bad news, and these are facts.  In the beginning the tax on the employee was 1%, and 1% on the employer.  Total tax,  2%.  Now, it adds up to 15.3%!!!!.  You each pay 7.65%!!!  Talk about a hosing!!  It gets worse.  Initially, when this bullshit program was concocted by FDR, who by the way, was in many ways a freaking socialist, there were 16 people paying in for every one person who received a benefit.  Now, we have fewer than four people supporting that one recipient, and boy is he/she getting heavier and heavier!!  

Do the math, supporting one person split 16 ways ,difficult, split less than four ways, damn near  impossible!!!!.  Don’t go away, yet.  More bad news,  right now for people in their late  40’s and early 50’s the age at which you get your maximum SS benefit is 65, right??? …………………………………………………….. WRONG!! Iwas born in 1956, people around my age group have to wait until they are 66 and 8 months to collect the max!!!  That’s a full 20 months of waiting and getting hosed!!  By the time we actually get there, Congress will push the age back to 70 before one gets his highest SS benefit!!  Hey gang, this is absolute highway robbery and this is one bullshit way to run a railroad. 

But people are vary ignorant and obstinate. When George W. asked for input from both partiesto privatize retirements, SS, and other programs,or come up with some type of solution,  all hell broke out, politically.  People are clinging  to this bullshit system and it is going to get worse when the Baby Boomers hit age 62 and up, Baby Boomers are coming with big population numbers.   We are in deep, deep kimshe!!

MF